Northern Districts v Wellington, T20, Seddon Park, 22
December 2018
Scorecard
(contains
video links of wickets, boundaries and beards).
For
the first time since I moved to Wellington in 2006, I have been to the cricket
at Seddon Park in Hamilton. I was a regular in the press box there for three
years or so from the turn of the century as CricInfo’s man in the central North
Island, and reported upon a good deal of interesting cricket while enjoying
Northern Districts’ free lunches.
At
that time the ground was newly remodelled to double the size of the banking
that surrounds two-thirds or so of the playing area, so as to attract more
international fixtures. This involved taking out the trees that formed a near
continuous canopy around the top of the bank when I first went to Seddon Park
twenty years ago. It was pleasing to see that their replacements have matured,
returning the rural feel that the ground has despite its central-city location
(as I have noted previously, it is the only ground I have spectated at where I
have been able to get a haircut and sit-down meal and still been back in my
seat for the first ball after lunch). As well as the bouncy castle, without
which no T20 match can be played, there was also an inflatable pub.
It was
a pleasure to watch under lights in a part of the country where the climate
does not necessitate an overcoat, several sweaters and a balaclava to survive
the experience. Flags were given to spectators on arrival rather than the
thermal blankets that are more appropriate in Wellington.
The
occasion was the opening game of the domestic T20 season, with Northern
Districts hosting Wellington. A pleasing scheduling development this year is
that many games are double headers, with the men’s match preceded by a women’s
game. I arrived in time to catch the last ten overs of so of ND’s innings.
Chasing 144, ND were well-placed with 60 or so needed and eight wickets
standing, but they collapsed like the morale of the turkey population at this
time of year, losing seven wickets for 23 runs.
Amelia
Kerr was playing for Wellington. Recently turned 18, in June she broke the
women’s world ODI record for an individual with 232 against Ireland. Good
judges say that she is a rare talent, and I look forward to seeing her bat.
Today it was her bowling that took the eye. She took three for ten with her leg
spin, inducing cluelessness in the opposition as only a good leg spinner can.
The last time I saw a leggie do that was when Ish Sodhi ran through Wellington
at the Basin earlier this year. Though in the other camp, he greeted her with
warm approval after the match, the fellowship of the wrist-spinner’s union overriding
team loyalty. The ND lower order may not be technically equipped to meet the
challenge, but a bowler who lands it with consistent accuracy and turns it both
ways with bounce as Kerr does, will bamboozle better players than them.
In the
men’s match, Wellington won the toss and put ND in. On a good pitch for
batting, as Seddon Park is, I remain of the opinion that it is better to bat
first as the pressure of chasing a large total undoes a team so often. That is,
more or less, what happened here.
Though
Walker wasn’t in the home side here, the other two bearded crowned heads were,
and it turned out to be a royalist triumph, though it did not seem that way
when Devcich was forced to abdicate from the second ball of the match, top
edging Woodcock to short third man.
Devcich
was replaced by his emperor-cousin Dean Brownlie who played the most
substantial innings of the day, 99 from 45 balls, 76 of which came in
boundaries. It was a satisfying combination of muscle and guile. One short of
the hundred, Brownlie deserves credit for going for the big hit rather than
taking the easy single that was there for the asking.
Each
of the first five overs of the innings was delivered by a different bowler. The
aim of this is to prevent the batsmen from settling, but it is a tactic that
can be more disruptive to the bowlers. Woodcock, for example, bowled a fine
first over, but was immediately replaced by Neesham, who was hit for four fours
(though more athletic fielding might have turned two of them into catches). One
of these was a cross-bat smash by Seifert that rocketed towards non-striker
Brownlie at waist height. He just managed to straddle jump the oncoming
missile. An inch higher and the line of succession would have been terminated
there and then. When Woodcock returned, he got tonked too.
Jeetan
Patel, who stepped aside from the domestic 50-over competition, is back for the
T20 and made an immediate impact, conning the in-form Seifert to tap the first
ball he bowled back for an easy caught-and-bowled. Only a single came from that
over, but Patel’s effectiveness diminished with each over that he bowled. In
his last over his normally infallible control went missing, and three full
tosses all went over the rope, by a considerable margin. I felt sympathy for
Patel earlier, when a clear mishit by Mitchell went for six, a sure sign of
imbalance between bat and ball. Nofal also went for three sixes in one over,
all by Brownlie.
Hamish
Bennett’s clever change of pace restricted ND to four from the last over of the
innings, but 215 for six is a T20 total that will win many more games than it
loses, even in Seddon Park’s corseted boundaries.
It was
good to see Mitch Santner back for ND after being out for nine months with a
knee injury. The national team lacks balance without him, and 22 not out and
three overs for 28 was a satisfactory start.
Leading
the reply, Devon Conway got off the mark with a six over long off in the first
over off Devcich, followed by a four through mid-wicket next ball. He hit seven
more fours, all pure shots through the off side. It was the best cricket of the
match.
It is
Conway’s second season for Wellington since moving from South Africa. Such is
the way of the world that a televised 45 here set off social media in a way
that a double hundred in the Plunket Shield a couple of weeks ago failed to do,
with many asking when he will be qualified to play for New Zealand (to which
the answer is September 2020).
But
returning to the theme of leg spinners instigating self-doubt, the mere
appearance of Ish Sodhi ball-in-hand caused Conway to abandon the composed
orthodoxy that had served him so well to that point. Sodhi’s first ball he
unsuccessfully attempted to reverse sweep. The second he charged at brainlessly
and was bowled.
Four
of Conway’s boundaries came in Scott Kuggeleijn’s first over, and things got no
better for the bowler, who had a shocker. The tenth over of the innings
included three wides as he kept getting the slow bouncer wrong. At least that
over eventually reached a conclusion. Kuggeleijn’s final over included two
above-waist full tosses so he was stood down with two balls of the over left.
Paradoxically, he bowled more deliveries than anybody else in the game, wides
and no balls included, finishing with 3.4-0-58-1.
However,
it was Kuggeleijn’s dismissal of Hose, caught behind from the last ball of the
tenth over, that sparked the collapse that gave the game to ND. At that point Wellington
were more than halfway towards their target with seven wickets standing, so
were still narrow favourites.
But
Neesham went in the next over, miscuing Sodhi to cover. Sodhi isn’t always the
most economical bowler, but gets the key batsmen out, which is why he is No 6
in the world bowling rankings for T20 at the time of writing. Any hope that
Wellington had from this point on was expunged by the deceptively unlikely
figure of Anton Devcich.
If
asked to demonstrate to a young person the art of pie throwing, simply show
them a video of Devcich bowling and the job will be done, or so anyone watching
him bowl for the first time might be forgiven for thinking. Any indecision on
the batsman’s part would be merely whether to hit him over midwicket or long
off. But beware. Devcich is in the great tradition of bowlers who carry the
appearance of a friendly spaniel but who can bite like a rottweiler. Chris
Harris is the personification of the type, his ambling windmill action apparently
doing no more than placing the ball on the tee, yet performing good enough a
con to bring him 203 wickets in ODIs. Darren Stevens is another example. Devcich
finished with four for 27. Wellington’s last six wickets fell for 12 runs.
One
man’s misfortune is another’s opportunity. Much of Kuggeleijn’s waywardness was
communicated to the world by Billy Bowden, making the most of a rare appearance
before the TV cameras to reprise his full range of theatrical umpiring signals,
a Christmas ham a few days early.
