Gimme a boost, call the uce with the juice 'cos man's not hot he's acting a goose.

Although the middle chunk of Martin Guptill and the Blackcaps' innings was snatched away by a splash of rain, we were graced with a sighting of Guppy's brilliance. After the first ODI vs Pakistan, I laid the basics of Guptill's role at the top of the order alongside Colin Munro and a large part of Guptill setting foundations down is that he's rather good at cashing in, one of the best in the world in fact.

Guptill finished on 86* with a strike-rate of 121.12. That could make you feel as though Guptill took over from Colin Munro - who was dismissed early - and instead of Guptill laying those foundations, he went bang in Munro's absence. Instead, it was business as usual for Guptill as he worked his way to 32 of 42 balls when the rain come in, at a strike-rate of just 76.

It's kinda downbuzz that rain has robbed us of seeing two full ODI contests and sure, Aotearoa were in strong pozzies in both games but it's just not as cool when the full contest is compacted. The rain simplified the next stage of Guptill's innings and after doing the hard yards, Guptill was set on a mission to go bang for 11 overs and he then scampered to 86 off 71 balls with a strike-rate of 186; Guptill simply flipped his innings from being 10-15 runs behind run-a-ball, to being 10-15 runs better than run-a-ball.

That's what Guptill is capable of and when he flips the switch, he's hitting deliveries for six that he was defending, prodding at or hustling for a single earlier in his innings. Of course, this makes many folk go crazy because the casual sports fan can't wrap their head around how a batsman can get vastly different results off the same ball. For cricket-lovers, it's just one of them things where a typical quality batsman has to roll through the rhythms of an innings.
In these two ODIs, Guptill has seen off the new-ball, batting 20 overs even and that should in itself be celebrated. That's 2-0 in the job-doing stakes for Guptill and right now, if Guptill's doing his job the Blackcaps are looking the goods with the bat.

Ross Taylor was also slick in making 45 off 43 and this falls under a greater narrative I'm pondering about Taylor's greatness, vastly under-appreciated greatness in Aotearoa. The discussion will always be between Taylor and Kane Williamson, which tends to overlook Taylor in simply assuming that Williamson's the guy now and going to be the guy (what a guy) in the future; don't sleep on Taylor.

Usually careers can be split into two periods, one before being dropped for whatever reason and one after in which a player has an epiphany and you know the rest. For Taylor, it's pre-eye surgery and post-eye surgery and Taylor was already a bloody good batsman before that surgery so what he's dishing up now is bonkers. I will extrapolate this out to all formats in my Ross Taylor: What A Guy thing, but solely in ODIs, the numbers suggest that Taylor is an alien.

Since sussing that eye shit and coming back to cricket early in November 2015, Taylor has averaged 51.25 in all ODI cricket since then, 61.40 in Aotearoa ODIs and 71 in ODI wins for Aotearoa. Last year Taylor averaged 60.50 and all these are far superior than his career ODI average of 45.07; bonkers.

Compare those numbers to Williamson's numbers and our favourite cricketing uso is Aotearoa's best ODI batsmen right now, easily. Williamson has averaged 43.76 in ODIs since November 1, 42.85 in Aotearoa ODIs, 42.57 in 2017 ODIs and 47.05 in ODI wins during that period.

How do you want that chopped?

Taylor has batted above his career ODI average since November 1, 2015 and Williamson has batted below (other than wins) his average.

Williamson definitely hasn't been any sort of bat and we've got two batsmen contributing excessively to a winning ODI team. None of this is to direct any negativity to Williamson, only to suggest that Taylor's been trending north since that eye surgery and there's zero reason to think that he'll slow down any time soon. Taylor is in the best form of his life and looks as fit as he ever has, which could see Taylor go nek-level in the coming years.

Light up some herb for Rumman Raees, who has been kinda crappy for Pakistan. Raees has been Pakistan's most expensive bowler in both games, conceding 6.80rpo with a wicket in the first game and 7.65rpo without a wicket in the second game. Pakistan have lost both games and something's got to change, so light one up for the cuzzie.

Peace and love 27.