NZ Cricket and the Opener Quandary.

And what a quandary to have.  A team that has matured into a winning unit is good for the future going forward and would be even better should the one or both of the openers stuck around.  Fulton and Rutherford  are the incumbents and they have been largely ineffectual since the England Home series last year.  Looking at their opening partnership one gets the feeling they have been missing in the team profile, especially as their opening average is weighted by that 158 at Dunedin. There is plenty of calls for the likes of Guptil to be reinstated but looking back 3 years of New Zealand Test cricket suggests he's not actually the answer.

But looking back the previous 3 years throws up some interesting retrospective analysis.  We need someone.  Rutherford needs to be persevered with, so who best to partner him?  Well there are two tours this year prior to the CWC 2015, one away to the Windies and another away to UAE versus Pakistan.  Dare NZC stick with Fulton/Rutherford for the Windies matches, and then drop Fulton if he doesn't fire and put Latham in versus Pakistan?  Yup baptism of fire but it has to be done sometime and when you have Achilles Heels stopping you getting an extra 40+ runs regularly at the top you need to make changes.

Anyway, the summary of runs scored as an opening partnership since 2011.  Flynn and Rutherford?

New Zealand Opening Partnerships since 2011.
Flynn/ Guptill 2011
97
47
86
1
231	Aggregate
57.75	Average
Guptill/Watling 2011
10
55
65	Aggregate
32.5	Average
Nicol/Guptill 2011
7
16
11
1
35	Aggregate
8.75	Average
McCullum/Guptill 2012
7
0
2
40
29
18
4
32
25
26
0
30
213	Aggregate
17.75	Average
Ruhterford/Fulton 2013/14
19
23
1
1
95
3
14
18
33
57
48
31
5
1
55
21
158
6
25
79
4
697	Aggregate
33.2	Average