We have started to play http://www.senore.com/Cricket/MJ-Guptill-c1980 – Cricket News Update
After New Zealand’s continuous struggle to cope with the threat posed by Sunil Narine, the Kiwi Opener, Martin Guptill, believes that his team has finally started to play the mystery spinner better.
Guptill, 25, scored half-centuries in each innings of the on-going Antigua Test, helping his team resist against a stronger http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 side. The right-hander however, will be extremely disappointed not to have completed a hundred,
especially on day one, when he played a rash stroke on 97 to throw away his wicket.
The Black Caps miserably failed to read Narine’s variations in the tour, who grabbed seven wickets in the two T20 Internationals to go with his 13 scalps in the five One Day Internationals (ODIs), played earlier this month,
earning the Player of the Series award.
Not surprisingly, the 24-year-old spinner from Trinidad & Tobago was inducted in the Test team. Narine picked up five wickets in the first innings of the match, although he had to toil hard for 43 overs.
The right-arm off-spinner has so far picked up two victims in the second innings and is expected to play a massive role on the last day of the match, if the home team is to go 1-0 up in the series.
Guptill, along with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/BB-McCullum-c1129, accumulated 123 runs for the second wicket partnership to avoid an innings defeat and expressed that the Kiwi batsmen have started to read his variations.
“I thought myself and Brendon [McCullum] played him pretty well and there was a few balls that kicked up a bit and I got out to one of them,” Guptill expressed.
"I guess it's just watching the ball hard and watching what his hand's doing. You can pick up a couple of little keys with his deliveries. If you can pick those up then you are going to go well in picking him.”
He added, "It is getting easier. We've played him a lot this series. You keep on watching his hand. It's going to get easier the more you face him."
At stumps on day four of the match, the Black Caps were leading by 28 runs with seven wickets in hand and will have to fight hard to avoid defeat in the first of the two-match series.
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