"unprofessional", "overpaid", "no ticker", calls have been made''.

So tell me Holden, that was an incredibly gutsy and disciplined effort in the test series wasn't it? You know when Guptill tried to pull anything that moved before holing out in the deep, sign posted in fact, Oram reversed swept, McCullum swept his third ball in the air, and Ryder didn't move his feet. Thats professional and showing ticker huh? Overpaid? You betcha. They should hand pack their match fees. I suggest you watch the tape again, Holden.

Nice one Holden. Papps may have had a high average but 2 not-outs out of 6 digs inflate that and the strike rate was shocking (.60). Jesse would be my opener (.90). If you think his stats are likely to fall as he plays more, Eddy must be rubbing off on you.

Funny that Macca and Flem wouldn't make the squad (averages in the high 20's low 30's).

Once Christopher Cairns wasn't too shabby in the 00s (32 with bat, 32 with ball - would put him ahead of Jake but still behind the Saffa Import, statistically at least, but as a match-winner??).

So 7 (or 8 if I incl Jesse) of the best 11 players this decade are in the squad. Don't know if that says much or not :(

StS: Yes fair call there chap - Elliott and Guptill will probably end up with stats lower than 47-48 in the end, but (a) I hope I am wrong about that; and (b) I should exonerate Ryder and possibly Taylor too.

Eddy: I don't recall seeing us play Test cricket in the past week. If it made me as miserable and vitriolic as it makes you, I would never watch cricket again. (By the way, somewhere else you were banging on about how you would rather have a team that gutsed it out to 5th day - that is exactly what we did in the 2nd Test but you're still whining.)

Eddy, if you're so smart and addicted to answering your own questions why don't you name us your XI from 2000-2009 or do you hate every singleo one of our players too much to be able to choose a team?

The only one that was battling on the last day was the captain who wasn't even a batsman. And we still, erm....lost, Holden. The fact you're getting satisfaction from another loss says it all. We lost the 2 match series 2-0 and lost both the one dayers - badly too. Or are you going to say we won a couple of slap and tickle 20/20's so all is not lost? Besides, the shots they got out to in the tests were similar to the one dayers - awful. But hey, you don't like the cold hard facts staring you in the face do you. Bring out the pom pons instead!

Hates a strong word, Ace. I never used it. And I have been asked questions from Sean and dan s. For the record I said the team now is woeful due to the poor administration since 2004 and the inability of players to want to learn and fight hard for their country. Seen in the pathetic shots they display in getting out. As for my 2000-09 x1 it is as follows: Astle, Fleming, Taylor, Twose, Cairns, Styris, McCullum, Vettori, Mills, Bond, Allott. But at the end of the day test cricket is where its at. As Ian Chappell rightly said on cricinfo recently the fact you can win a match and not even bowl the other side out says it all.

hahahaha Allott? Mate, his back was stuffed by 2000. "His" world cup was '99. Quick check: http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/36179.html?class=2;spanmax1=31+Dec+2009;spanmin1=01+Jan+2000;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling 9 games in the 00s. 9 wickets @ 45, and economy of 5.67. So not only are you unreasonably anti (in the same manner you accuse us of being unreasonably pro) you actually have no idea either?

Perhaps you should go back to you VHS tapes of your 80's heroes and leave the comments about modern cricketers to those that know something about the subject.

Our batting does suck, doesn't it? Sinclair has been one of the best batters in Domestic for years. But he's got to be one of the most abused in terms of sellection. He does fantastically for CD, gets a rare call-up, has one bad day and gets shunted back down again after one game. It's neither fair on him, nor our team's chances. I think Riggor Richardson put it best on The Crowd Goes Wild last Thursday / Friday when he said something along the lines of "In 2001, our main pace bowling attack was Bond, Tuffey and Mills, here we are in 2009 and our pace bowling attack is..... Bond, Tuffey and Mills" Where's the development? Where's the fresh blood? (Where's Tim Southee?) We are basically the same team we were almost a decade ago and we weren't that flash then, either. We were a superpower in the 80's. The "Young Guns" weren't so flash in the 90's and the "Noughties" team has an all too similar average to its decade. Clean a few slates, start afresh, launch some new international careers.

Napierinframe, that's what we've been forced to do with the batting, I shudder to think how bad we'd be if our experienced bowlers were all dumped as well. Bond and Mills are there because they are the best limited overs pace bowlers we've got. Tuffey is much of a muchness with half a dozen others. Southee should be in there as far as I'm concerned but a year or two at domestic level will probably help him more than a few more 1/60 off 8 overs performances.

Allott had a ODI average of 23, that is outstanding. I realise his WC was 99 (thank you for pointing out the obvious, Sean) but he also played in 2000 - so he qualifies. And his ODI average was from 31 matches, last time I looked a WC doesn't have 31 matches. Or would you prefer Jeff Wilson or Michael Mason in there? And I know enough about modern players, Sean - they have no technique and discipline.