Given the precarious position we have been placed in with Test cricket by NZC this summer, I view this ODI series vs England to be the headline act of the summer. The fact that England are an exceptional ODI team who recently torched Australia and have a squad that looks superior up against the Blackcaps on paper also plays a large role here. England are coming off of a series vs Australia and Aotearoa is still riding this ODI high - against some fairly mediocre teams - setting up series that will fill cricketing bellies throughout Aotearoa.

I did not expect any changes to be made to the Blackcaps squad and as someone who thinks that Ish Sodhi should be in every Blackcaps ODI squad, it's lovely to see Lesson go that route. Yet the reasoning for Sodhi's inclusion was a bit weird as Gavin Larsen said that Sodhi was effectively selected as injury cover for Todd Astle and Mitchell Santner.

Again, I reckon Sodhi should be in every Blackcaps ODI squad and also play in the 1st XI more often than not alongside Santner. Aotearoa has a fascination with picking X number of seamer bowlers because that's how it's always been done and most of us young kiwis will understand that it's difficult for the older folk to do anything close to 'revolutionary'. My belief is that we pick the best bowlers available and if Sodhi/Santner are in the top-4 options ahead of seamers, then pick them ahead of seamers.

A bowling attack of Sodhi, Santner, Trent Boult, Tim Southee and all-rounder overs from Colin de Grandhomme and Colin Munro would be all good.

And this is for kiwi conditions as Sodhi and Santner are tall bowlers who have grown up using their height as a weapon on kiwi pitches - I'll save you that yarn as I've harped on about that many times.

Sodhi is straight up a better bowler than Astle and many would agree with me in saying that Sodhi is top-5 in Aotearoa. He should be there and it's nice that he's been selected, although Lesson still view him as the third best spinning option.

Top-5 bowlers in Aotearoa? Hmm, all formats, like who are the best bowlers who can do the business in all formats?

In no order, mine would be; Boult, Southee, Sodhi, Santner, Neil Wagner.

In order, mine would be; 1) Boult 2) Wagner 3) Santner 4) Sodhi 5) Southee.

What's your top-5 kiwi bowlers? Leave a comment with yours.

A minor point of interest in this series will be the battle between Lockie Ferguson and Matt Henry, which may not even come to fruition. These two may struggle to get overs in if de Grandhomme and Astle are both selected, because their all-round abilities will see them bump Ferguson and Henry out of a playing XI. Ferguson appears to be ahead of Henry right now and I suspect we will see Ferguson join Southee, Boult, de Grandhomme and Santner in the bowling attack for game tahi.

What Ferguson does with his opportunities will be low key crucial as he hasn't been overly dominant in Ford Trophy recently, but has been economical, thus suggesting that he's been bowling alright. Ferguson won't have the luxury of being economical against a stacked England batting unit and he'll need to take wickets to be effective, allowing for an intriguing step up for Ferguson and a chance for everyone to gauge where he's at.

The major point of interest is the Blackcaps middle order of Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls and Mitchell Santner. We can go back to the Champions Trophy where it was the Jimmy Neesham/Corey Anderson experiment and I don't think this has been fully sussed just yet, even though the middle order is now vastly revamped. 

Everyone knows Latham is in a spot of bother right now batting #5 and his Blackcaps lean patch flowed into Ford Trophy. This is the obvious note that everyone from the mainstream media to your homies will chat about, although I'm kinda more interested in how Nicholls deals with a far greater challenge batting #6. 

Nicholls has the tools to play the #6 role as he can nudge it around and amp up the scoring without reverting to filthy slogs, I'm definitely not convinced that Nicholls can do this against England's bowlers. This is a nice reflection of the Blackcaps situation in general as Nicholls, like the Blackcaps, has looked good against weaker opposition and whether he can translate that to strong performances against a quality ODI team will be of huge significance.

#6 is a very tricky spot in the batting line up and if Nicholls executes his role - that changes drastically from game to game - this series, then we'll be looking at a specialist #6 with an exciting future ahead of him.

I mention Santner and not de Grandhomme because de Grandhomme's role is fairly simple and he's played that role nicely numerous times. Santner on the other hand is a celebrated batsman, who gets a nudge ahead of other players because of his batting and hasn't actually done anything with the bat recently. 

Santner averages 15.83 since the start of 2017 and that's digestible if you're a blaster who smacks boundaries from ball one, yet Santner has an ODI strike-rate of 86.44 (career). This is the same buzz from the T20 tri-series as Santner bats in a position where his job is to score quickly and a strike-rate over 100, is the status-quo, which doesn't gel with Santner at all.

I'm just raising a warning of the middle order woes still lingering, don't get caught up thinking that everything is honki-dory because of what has gone down this summer in Blackcaps ODIs. England may be licking their lips, targeting the Blackcaps middle order and as they'll be paying close attention to de Grandhomme in building very specific plans in bowling against him, they will be confident in rolling through the Blackcaps batting line up.

Note: I really like Santner's batting, I just think he's being set up to fail in a role that doesn't suit him. Santner has his highest averages in Test and First-Class cricket where his strike-rates under sub-50 and he's genuinely capable of being a decent batsman, just not down the order where his job is to bat like de Grandhomme.

This ODI series is all about seeing what our Blackcaps are up to in this format. They have dominated a weak West Indies team and an under-performing Pakistan team this summer, which could be great as the team is full of confidence and ready to step up. Whether that's the case or not is what has my cricketing antenna perked and England's ODI confidence may be more justified. 

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Peace and love 27.