Time to be bold and brave

New Zealand’s team for their Test series against Bangladesh is announced on Monday and Dylan Cleaver in the New Zealand Herald believes the selectors will play it safe but urges them not to:

After a fraught selection meeting in Sydney during the midst of New Zealand's disastrous twin tours of South Africa and Australia the talk was of possible changes, of a new beginning in the five-day game. Now it appears a few cheap one-day runs and wickets against over-matched minnows will be enough to retain a status quo. The selectors will decide that it would be a mistake to make wholesale changes. However, with a test team that is so obviously failing every time it comes up against decent opposition, the biggest mistake is surely to sit back and do nothing.

In the same paper, Adam Parore has much the same view, but offers an interesting insight into how his first game back with the gloves after five years went. He also reports that Sky’s banning of New Zealand’s coach John Bracewell has delighted Bracewell “as he has better things to do with his time.” Parore has the solution.

Mark Richardson, also in the same paper, believes that New Zealand are in a no-win situation facing Bangladesh:

Playing Bangladesh is exactly that. If they beat them then it is a case of "so they should" but if they lose then all hell would break loose. In fact, since there is little by the way of praise to be had from winning, and given the disappointing events over the past few months, then you could say there is everything to lose.