Santner's probably done less than Ronchi with the bat in his career.

A fair way to describe this Blackcaps team is that the team resembles Luke Ronchi. Sure, anyone and any team can have a good day, that equation is more 50/50, where Ronchi hitting a block-busting half-century as he did against Australia is around the 20/80 mark. So let's extrapolate that to the whole team and with Kane Williamson a near-certainty to score runs, everyone else is operating at that 20/80 level of making a strong contribution to a winning performance.

Whether it's the middle order, or Trent Boult, or Martin Guptill; the Blackcaps just don't fill me with a whole lot of confidence at the moment.

Unfortunately, we've come to kinda expect that from the middle order and after preaching/pleading with Corey Anderson to step up to the plate and demand the No.1 all-rounder spot, no one is. In two games, the highest score from the Broom, Neesham, Anderson, Santner group has been Neesham's 18 against England. That group has combined to score 36 and 42 runs in either game, 78 in total and there's no point in even comparing that to Williamson, it's not even as much as Ross Taylor's total of 85 across these two games.

Just as we're all hopeful of Ronchi going nuts, we're not a whole lot more than hopeful when the game rests on the shoulders of our middle order when they are chasing 310. Regardless of the power that we know Neesham and Anderson have, we haven't seen them actually grab the game by the ball-bags and dictate the rest of the innings.

Williamson's doing his job and is flexing his Golden Child status alongside Joe Root, Virat Kohli and Steve Smith. Aotearoa has produced one of four impeccably talented batsmen and if concerning yourselves of how mediocre the rest of this team has been, just enjoy Williamson's work, watch his highlights and rejoice in his wizardry.

Taylor has been alright, not amazing but second-best to Williamson and Ronchi's two games perfectly reflects his style at the top of the order; he smacked and half-century, then got a duck. The missing link here has been Martin Guptill, who has gone back to back with scores in the mid-20s. Against Australia this was all good because Ronchi grabbed the momentum, chasing 310 against England though, the stage was set for Guptill to do that. Guptill's last five games in the IPL saw him score over 12 runs just once (36) and in England/Wales, Guptill has scores of 9, 116, 26, 27. Not so bad, just save the century for the big time, not a warm-up.

The other curve-ball has been Trent Boult, who has taken a wicket in either game while conceding 7rpo and 5.6rpo. Tim Southee has been about as tidy as a medium-pace swing bowler can be when there's not a whole lot of swing and without much juice to help them, Boult was unable to snatch an early wicket. Adam Milne's done the most damage and knocked over England's openers in his 3/79, that he went for 7.9rpo and that Corey Anderson and Mitchell Santner couldn't stem any flow of runs, also didn't help.

England's bowlers put the kiwi bowlers in the shade and having a leggy like Adil Rashid in their team should be an asset moving forward. Rashid replaced Chris Woakes in the bowling line up and took on the spinning duties ahead of Moeen Ali, taking 2/47 @ 4.7rpo which doesn't reflect so well on Santner's 1/54 @ 6.75rpo. But Santner's not a wrist spinner and I'd suggest that with Rashid and Imran Tahir, England and South Africa appear the most likely to win the Champions Trophy. Of course there's many other moving parts, but in fairly tame bowling conditions, the variation and actual spin offered by a leggy can provide a point of difference.

The positive for the Blackcaps is that they control their destiny to some extent and must beat Bangladesh, hoping for England to beat Australia. In theory, this should bring out the best from this team and we should see various players fill their boots with runs and wickets to put Aotearoa in the best position they can.

Surely Guppy can't go three straight innings in a major tournament without a half-century?

Surely one of these all-rounders wants to be the long-term top-dawg all-rounder?

Surely Southee and/or Boult will lead this attack in steam-rolling Bangladesh?

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