New Zealand are currently showing some early-tour jitters in their opening match, currently 6-178 off 59 overs. Jamie How's the only one who's really shown good form with a so-far unbeaten 113, but his opening partner Redmond was out cheaply, and must surely be nervous. John Bracewell said that he could be New Zealand's next Mark Richardson, but so far he looks to be their next Matthew Bell- someone who can score runs against Bangladesh, but struggles against everyone else. I hope for the sake of the up-coming contest that I'm wrong.

On the domestic side, 196cm Josh Hazlewood (I won't try to convert that into feet and inches) has made an encouraging debut, bagging 2-47 off his first 15, including the prize scalp of Ross Taylor. Could he be a star in the making? He's already drawing comparisons with a certain Glen McGrath.

Oh come on Aurelius

about 6'5"......a ruckmans size

I can almost smell the heave-ho-freo-dockers support running though your posts.

Yes, I managed to work that out after I made the post- but for years I thought that 30 cm neatly went into 12 inches, which exactly equalled a foot, but having all of this 6ft=183 cm rubbish just confuses the whole issue. Anyhow, I wonder how much growing he still has to do?

And incidentally, according to his CricInfo profile Josh isn't short for Joshua- it's just a stand-alone name in his case. And now we're seeing Jack as a stand-alone name- how long until we see "Bob" on a birth-certificate?

Well I used to be a Dockers supporter many years ago, but now my winter sport is Rugby Union, where the players seem to grow out sideways.

New Zealand all out for 266. Jamie How top-scored with 170 (his highest first-class score) and Grant Lambert took 5-74.

Not the kind of start the Kiwis would have been looking for, but despite that, in the absence of Oram I really wouldn't change this team at all for the Tests. No offense to Grant Elliot, but I really can't see him contributing with the bat here- at least, not enough to warrant New Zealand forgoing an extra bowling option.

Why bother trying to convert 195 cm into feet and inches? The metric measure says exactly what it means. If we intend to use metric measures - which all the world does except for a few hundred million North Americans - we should use them and get used to them.

I remember a British radio presenter years ago - Derek Jameson - flatly refusing to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit at the request of a listener who had written in asking him to do so. He said on air that he wasn't going to do it, that we have to accept that the imperial measures are a relic of the past and best consigned to it and to Mrs Jones he advised, "If you really don't know what 18C feels like, step outside your front door at midday today, because that's what the Met Office says it's going to be". Fine man, Derek Jameson.

OF (173cm, sitting in an office at 22C)

__________________
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22C = Warm day in Prague ? or Pretty good heater ?

Mrs Acker a teacher was recently pointing out a recent phenomena of students struggling to learn division may possibly be a legacy of us now using the metric system instead of the imperial system where we were constantly using fractions.

By the way the Australian National University has found the mathematical ability of Australian children has not improved and may have possibly gone backwards in the last 40 years.

Literacy, numeracy 'haven't improved since 1960s' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

New Zealand 4-35, having bowled out the New South Welshmen for 361. I get the feeling that the Tests are going to be depressingly one-sided.

Flynn and Vettori are leading something of a fightback, with New Zealand now 111-4. I'm growing more and more impressed by Flynn- just 23, and he's already showing the qualities of grit and determination that made New Zealand a genuinely competitive side back in the day.

Moises Henriques of NSW has taken all 4 wickets

Hard to get a guage on this game. We have to remember that NSW as a state has a population about of about 2 million people more than that of the whole of New Zealand.

So realy it is just another match where the Kiwi's are playing a bigger opponent.

Yes, all things being equal, New Zealand really does punch above it's weight as a sporting nation- a competitive cricket side and the best Rugby team in the world, and they had a successful Olympic campaign too, and that's off a population of only 4 or so million people.