Good points. Firstly, Hopkins is ineligible, otherwise he'd be the obvious pick. There seems little to choose between BJ Watling, Stu Mills and Bevan Griggs. Reece Young on the other hand is crap. McGlashan as well in my opinion is a pretty poor keeper and occasionally thoughless batsman to boot.

Ryder's had a disappointing season by his own standards, but I agree that he must still be a certainty.

As regards eligibility, the normal rule is that a player must have played 5 first class games. However, given the Kiwis only play 8, compared to 17 in England, I have reduced the eligibility criteria to 3 games - which as a percentage is still higher than the 5 required to be eligible in England. Hence, Gillespie is eligible.

It seems to me that Ingram has secured an opening slot, but who should accompany him?

Broom or Redmond from Otago must be in with a shot. I've seen Broom a few times, and he looks a bit susceptible to an early dismissal, but once he's in he seems a decent scorer. I have to admit, I can't remember seeing anything of Redmond.

The qualifying criteria is based on the criteria from the World A-Team Cricket Tournament Proposal thread.

In that thread, no third criteria was actually stated but was created later for the WAT England A team to ensure that:
The third criteria was first stated in the WAT England 2004 thread:
I chose 8 matches as the cut-off because it was 50% of domestic first-class matches in England. My thinking was to exclude 2nd XI players who qualified under the age rule but were clearly not regular first-class players.

I believe the Test cap rule has also been modified (Rachael's idea) to include players who played more than 5 Tests at an early age (when they were not fully ready to take the step up and establish themselves in the side) and were subsequently dropped. The idea was discussed in this thread. Rachael was concerned about the situation in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh who regularly pick players at 19 years or younger for a few Tests and then drop them. It's a valid point but I believe these players should only be included as qualifiers on a case by case basis where they have demonstrably improved at first-class level and obviously deserve a second chance. I believe James Foster made the WAT England A 2005 side despite having played more than 5 Tests. However, he was still under 30 when he was selected. A victory for commonsense. Obviously, we don't want the WAT teams to resemble Test 2nd XI's full of veteran players because we want to focus on and promote up-and-coming players. By limiting the age to under 30 it's easier to regard someone like James Foster as an up-and-coming player rather than a veteran despite having played too many Tests.

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Seeing as this is a team for the future Todd Astle is worth a look opening - he hasn't had a great season but did extremely well on a develelopment tour to Aus in the latter half of last year. And what about Nathan McCullum - provides an extra bowlign option so the team can play two spinners without affecting the sides balance.

It seems so far we have Taylor and Ryder confirmed at 3 and 4 and Gillespie and Patel at 9 and 10.

I vote for Griggs as keeper too.

So, if we look at the openers, the main contenders are:

Now, Tim McIntosh averaged 29.42 this season DESPITE scoring 205 in one game. To my mind, he's the easy one to drop from the list. That leaves Ingram, Astle, Watling and Barnett. Ingram and Barnett have the form, though there is the problem that Barnett has played for Canada - would he be willing to play for NZ and would there be any qualifying period required?

If so, that only really leaves Ingram and Astle as out-and-out openers that are eligible. Do we try and shoe-horn in another middle order player as an opener? Does Watling open up as and double up as keeper?

The only other openers I can think of are Jordan Sheed (not good enough), Shaun Haig (not enough games), Sam Fairley (not good enough)

Unfortunately they don't show keeping stats like byes and missed chances - but then we'd have a huge debate on the virtues on picking a specialist gloveman vs. a batsman who can catch, and the whole thing would degenerate into a read/jones debacle... best not mention nixon/foster!

keepers are a troublesome bunch...

Going purely on the batting stats [read: average] Stu Mills is the best of the keepers (in FC at least), though Griggs has been probably more consistent with the bat all season (6 50's from 15 innings).

Putting a keeper in a 7 say, leaves us with a gap at the top of the order. Giving Watling a go opens a space in the middle order where we have plenty of options.

Someone mentioned Elliot - good pick, that was who was forgetting last time...

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Yes - the keeping debate is wide open here. To my mind, there's little to choose in batting between Watling, Griggs and Mills - very little. The only difference is that Watling is a seasoned opener and as you say, picking Watling frees up a space in the middle order.

So, who is the best keeper?

We can't go on byes unfortunately, but the stats give us the dismissal comparison.

Watling - 13 catches, 7 matches 1.86 dismissals per game
Mills - 15 catches, 4 matches 3.75 dismissals per game
Griggs - 18 catches, 1 stumping, 8 matches 2.34 dismissals per game

Clearly, given Northerns were top of the league this year (which would suggest their bowlers are good at forcing dismissals) Watling must be a below average keeper. I can easily imagine that Aldridge alone would induce more than 13 edges to the keeper across 7 matches.

Mills achieved 15 in only 4 innings for a Wellington side with a decent seam attack. Griggs took 19 dismissals for a relatively weak CD team (compared to recent years anyway)

Its a tough call. Maybe we should have a poll on this one??

Oh, and the question over Elliott is that I don't think he's eligible for NZ yet. Certainly, his cricinfo profile still says 'South Africa' rather than 'Canada/New Zealand' like Geoff Barnett's.

Looking through the scorecards in more detail, it looks as though Watling is an opening bat who occasionally keeps wicket: of the seven matches he played this season he only kept wicket in three. I think, however, a poll between Griggs and Mills is probably the way to decide who should get the gloves.

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Of course McGlashan is Northern's usual keeper. I'm guessing Watling mostly kept whilst McGlashan was somewhat bizzarely playing for the Black Caps in the 20:20.

Watling does not seem to have batted well enough to be considered as specialist opener, but he is still a keeping option. I'll put him in the poll, but I reckon that he'll be hard pressed to garner any votes.

I've voted for Mills, Griggs batting (sorry for taking the Fletcher attitude) does seem to have echoes of Geraint Jones about it. His ability to get big scores beyond 100 seems to be minimal (indeed, he's never passed it), despite his wicketkeeping abilities. I would not, however, begrudge him selection in this squad.

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"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose."
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OK - I've put my CD bias aside and also gone for Mills...

Assuming that its safe to say that Watling won't be selected we still need an opener. I'd go for a Redmond / Ingram combination. Admittedly I don't know a huge amount about Aaron Redmond either - except that he's the son of a statisical anomoly...

There's Todd from Otago too just to clutter up our already crowded middle order

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