Australia
v New Zealand, third test, Sydney Cricket Ground, 3 – 6 January 2020
I
last went to Sydney for a test match 21 years ago. It was the final match in
the 1998-9 Ashes, and there was much fine cricket to see: a partnership of 190
by the Waugh brothers; Darren Gough’s hattrick; Michael Slater’s 123 that
accounted for a greater proportion of his team’s total than any one batsman
since Bannerman at the MCG in the very first; 12 wickets for Stuart MacGill. The
history is palpable at the SCG; it is no effort to see Foster bouncing up the
pavilion steps after his 287, to sense the anticipation as Bradman came down
them, or to hear the sweetness of Trumper’s timing during any of his three
Sydney Ashes centuries (or Woolley’s in his two).
First
day
It
was surprising to hear God Defend New Zealand struck up before play on
the first morning when Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe might have more
appropriate, given the Groundhog Day experiences of Perth and Melbourne,
now to be repeated here at the SCG: Australia make a big score, New Zealand
make a small score, Australia set a big target, New Zealand fall well short.
What’s
more, the party was now depleted by illness, just as England’s was at the same
time in Cape Town. Why are these fit young sportsmen so susceptible to bugs? More
quinoa in the diet than the immune system can tolerate, perhaps? At least in
Sydney there was no football match to further reduce the numbers, though this
may have been only because there were not enough players left standing to make
up two sides.
The
biggest loss was the captain, Kane Williamson, not in his best form, but always
the man most likely to make the substantial innings that New Zealand so badly
needed. Henry Nicholls and Mitch Santner had also succumbed, though Santner
would probably have been dropped anyway. Trent Boult was also out (though this
was injury rather than illness) so the best bowler joined the best batsman on
the sidelines.
There
was no option but to bring back Jeet Raval, dropped for Melbourne after showing
the form of a three-legged racehorse so far this season. The other batting
place was filled by debutant Glenn Phillips of Auckland, the form player…in the
50-over competition. Phillips learned of his selection while surfing, and arrived
in Sydney at about the same time as I did, the day before the game.
The
New Zealand management chose to make one further change, omitting Tim Southee
in favour of two spinners and the extra pace of Matt Henry. A comparison
between the two teams in this respect would be that of a Ford Anglia to a
Ferrari, but Southee had taken 12 wickets in the first two tests. It seemed odd
at the time and nothing occurred over the next four days to change that view.
Had
Southee played, he would have skippered, but it was Tom Latham who lost the
toss to Tim Paine. New Zealand has been good over the years at knowing who the
next captain will be and preparing them for the role, and Latham now fills this
position. Williamson will, we hope, continue as a player for most of the 2020s,
but may grow weary of the captaincy; Latham will be ready.
Paine’s
decision to bat on winning the toss was an easy one. The pitch was expected to
change as a test pitch should, becoming a spinner’s paradise on the fifth day;
how true that was, we will never know.
With
Wagner, for reasons that I have not heard explained, allergic to the new ball,
it was Colin de Grandhomme who opened the bowling with Matt Henry. There was a
certain amount of merriment about this from the Australian commentators, with
Sunil Gavaskar being mentioned as a bowler of similar type of opening bowler,
but de Grandhomme got Burns with a beauty that pitched on middle and off and
moved away, to be caught by Taylor at first slip. Again and again he exceeds
expectations. “Which of Henry and De Grandhomme will average under 30 with the
ball and which around 50 at the end of the decade?” is a question we would all
have got wrong at the outset of their careers.
De
Grandhomme was also involved in the second wicket, straight after lunch. It was
a legside long hop from Wagner that Warner hit pretty much as he intended only
for de Grandhomme to snap it up at leg gully.
Steve
Smith joined Marnus Labuschagne. The following half-hour or so was brilliant
test cricket. No wickets fell and few runs were scored, but it was gripping. It
was all about Steve Smith getting off the mark, which he took longer to do than
any Australian for at least 20 years. Geoff Allott made a 77-ball duck against
South Africa in 1998, and Godfrey Evans famously batted against type to remain
scoreless for 90 minutes at Adelaide in 1946/7, but they weren’t trying to
score. Smith was, and it took determined and skilful bowling, and sharp
fielding to stop him. The best bit was the contest of pure will between Wagner
and Smith. Even when Smith did manage to work one off his hip, a direct hit
might have cost Labuschagne his wicket.
Smith
continued to 63, with only four boundaries. He looked out-of-form, but he
always does to a degree. There can’t be a club medium pacer anywhere who hasn’t
seen Smith and thought that they would have him with a full-length ball on
middle and leg, but the numbers tell us that is nothing but self-deception. If
he were a building he would be of the brutalist school, stripped of all finery
and elegance, but solid enough to withstand a nuclear explosion.
At
the other end, Labuschagne was manifestly and magnificently in form, reaching
his fourth century in seven innings after tea.
From
mid-afternoon, New Zealand went more and more onto the defensive. On the radio,
Mark Taylor said that Latham had set “a field looking for a bad shot”. In this,
he was an authentic stand-in for Williamson, whose captaincy style is
increasingly defensive. It was forced upon him by the inability of the spinners
to exert pressure. Off-spinner Will Somerville was home; he grew up in Sydney
from the age of nine and has moved between Australia and New Zealand as an
adult. He had one successful season for New South Wales in 2016/17, taking 35
wickets in the Sheffield Shield. A late developer—he is 35—he is a chartered
accountant, but didn’t bowl like one today. Leg-spinner Todd Astle was also
wayward. Neither today nor at later stages of the match did Latham trust them
enough to bowl them in tandem.
De
Grandhomme took the third and last wicket to fall on the first day, getting
Smith with a repeat of the Burns dismissal. The third-wicket partnership was
worth 156. The day’s most rambunctious batting came from Matthew Wade, who took
it to Wagner in the last few overs of the day, and was unafraid to hook and
pull, depositing one ball among the members in the pavilion. Australia finished
the day on 283 for three.
The
comment by Mark Taylor referred to above, I came across on Macquarie Sport’s coverage.
Radio rights are not exclusive in Australia, and three different teams provide
ball-by-ball commentary on tests, an approach that the ECB should consider.
Taylor shares the calling (describing the play) with the competent Bruce Eva,
with the wonderful Ian Chappell leading the analysts, who included Geoff
Lawson, Glenn McGrath and Ian Smith. Danny Morrison was there too, but nowhere
near as irritating as he is on television. This was some of the best cricket
broadcasting I have heard for some time, particularly when Taylor, Chappell and
Smith were on together. They were very funny too, rich in anecdote and wit
(which is not to be confused with banter, the curse of modern sports
broadcasting). It was well worth putting up with the ads between overs and the in-commentary
promotions (“on the MacDonald’s scoreboard…”). My enjoyment of the cricket was
enhanced by having them in my ear telling me what was going on.
Second
day
In
the western suburbs of Sydney, pavements became frying pans and and thermometers bulged as temperatures
touched the high 40s, but at the SCG it peaked at a more temperate 35 degrees.
I took my seat in the Victor Trumper Stand early and spent the hour before play
applying sunscreen impasto.
At
the start of the day all the talk was about the timing of the declaration, so
Australia being bowled out represented progress. That the New Zealand openers
survived until the end of the day made it the best day of the series for the
tourists, though this is to damn it with faint praise.
Wade
went in the first over of the day, attempting to sweep a Somerville delivery
that did nothing more than to carry on in a straight line to take off stump.
The
biggest partnership of the remainder of the innings was 79 between Labuschagne
and Paine for the sixth wicket. Paine became a pantomime villain, dominating
the strike as Labuschagne neared 200.
Astle received the custard pie in the face when a DRS referral for his lbw
appeal to Paine was discovered not have hit the pad at all.
Labuschagne
went on to complete his first test double hundred, reaching 215 before giving
Astle a leading-edge return catch. On the first day the bulk of his runs had
come square and behind on the legside, but today he became more expansive and
attractive, using his feet to the spinners and unleashing drives as handsome as
a matinee idol.
His
dismissal triggered a mini-collapse, with four wickets falling for 20 runs. The
Stakhanov of the South, Neil Wagner, was heavily involved. He bowled Pattinson
via his glove, arm and bat and removed Starc’s middle stump to finish the
innings at 454, a total that New Zealand would have taken at the start of play
with the enthusiasm of Arthur Daley unloading a dodgy motor onto a naïve
punter.
But
my, we New Zealanders were nervous. As Latham and Blundell went out to bat our
expressions were those of an anxious mother dropping off her choirboy sons on
their first day at Bash Street Secondary. It was a close-run thing at times,
but they survived to the close.
Latham
showed yet again that his technique against the new ball is as good as
anybody’s. Blundell drew heavily on raw determination and chapters from the
Brian Close Book of Rash Bravado. I have seen quite a lot of Blundell for
Wellington and have never spotted his potential as a test opener, something I
have in common with coaches, commentators, selectors and probably Blundell
himself. He made a century
on debut, but that was against a tired and lacklustre West Indian
attack. Selected as opener on Boxing Day as the last man standing, he made
another century of an altogether different order. His unbeaten 34 here was as
impressive, against the odds and expectation.
So we
left the SCG in good heart, able to cope with the news that the heat had put
Sydney’s brand new light rail out of action. Fifty busses were magiced from the
air and within the hour I was at dinner, pleased with the day.
Third
day
As the
temperatures dropped, so did New Zealand’s hopes and self-esteem. The main
reason for this was some terrific bowling by Australia, particularly Nathan Lyon,
who it was a treat to watch. The pressure exerted by good bowling often results
in dismissals to poorer deliveries, but several of the New Zealanders got out
in ways that were uncharacteristic, almost as if they were overwhelmed by the
place and occasion, as New Zealand cricketers can be in the palaces that the
Australians play cricket in. It may be not be chance that New Zealand’s only test
win in Australia in the past 35 years came at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart, a
ground and town that look like they belong more in New Zealand than Australia.
Blundell
provided an early illustration of this phenomenon. He was unlucky that the ball
found its way between his legs to the stumps, but it was a long hop, a ball
that he could usually be relied upon to dispatch.
Raval
played much more aggressively than usual, particularly off the back foot, as if
he had decided to hit his way back into form. He looked good until on 31 he
fell lbw to Lyon, well forward but confirmed by DRS.
Latham,
solid as ever this morning, followed in the next over, dollying a catch to a surprised
Mitchell Starc at mid on, the only out fielder forward of square on the
legside.
At
lunch a total of 143 for three appeared satisfactory, but the New Zealand
supporters felt on the edge of a precipice, over which we teetered first ball after
the interval when Ross Taylor—who had looked in good form to that point—was lbw
to Cummins.
It seemed
that Latham would win the prize for getting out in a way you would expect him
to be the least likely to do, but Watling took it away from him with a loose
drive to a ball well wide of off, a shot he does not usually play until the sun
has risen twice.
Meanwhile,
the debutant Phillips was trying to get out but failing, a kamikaze pilot who
kept returning to base. Twice Lyon dropped return chances, the first, which
ripped off the bowler’s thumbnail, explaining the second. When he was caught at
deep midwicket the replay showed that Cummins had, by a whisker, failed to land
any part of his boot behind the front line.
A
couple of days before the game nobody would have predicted that either Raval or
Phillips would be playing; even more improbable would have been Raval’s scoring
rate being significantly higher than Phillips’. But test match cricket can be
about character as much as ability and Phillips deserved the fifty he reached after
tea because of the way the chances he offered did not diminish his sense of entitlement
to be there. He became more fluent as his innings went on and he had the
consolation of being out to a top-class delivery from Cummins that moved
through the gap between bat and pad to hit the top of off.
Speaking
of kamikaze pilots brings us to de Grandhomme, run out attempting a second that
nobody apart from him thought was on.
With
the tail invertebrate, New Zealand fell three short of saving the follow on. Or
so we thought, naively underestimating the ability of cricket’s rules to bend the
time-space continuum.
Warner
and Burns made it to the close untroubled except by their own running between
the wickets, which twice left the latter face down in the dirt like a defeated
western dueller.
I made
my way to the Guylian Belgian Chocolate Café for a medicinal dessert with views
of the Bridge and the Opera House. If your team has to lose badly, Sydney is
the place for it.
Fourth
day
Inspired
by Burns’ two close calls yesterday, New Zealand adopted a strategy of bowling
for run outs. Warner and Burns batted with considerable urgency, adding 54 in
the first ten overs.
No contemporary
cricketer irritates opposing fans more than David Warner. Australia’s answer to
Jeffrey Archer, he has bounced back from shame and humiliation, hubris and ego
undiminished. But what a batsman he is. In the opening overs he played two
shots that were as good as any in the match, the first a cover drive threaded
between a straight extra cover and a wide mid off, the second a cut that
scorched the grass in the split second it apparently took to reach the boundary.
He weights his shot impeccably, enabling twos to be taken where others would only
get singles.
The
inevitable hundred came in 147 deliveries. I had promised myself that I would discover
an urgent need to leave the stand as the moment approached so as to miss the
vulgar extravagance of his celebration. But I stood and applauded with the rest
of the crowd, compelled by the excellence of the performance.
Astle
got Burns lbw from a googly via the DRS. That brought in Labuschagne who
ghosted his way to fifty unnoticed, as the best can. He needed 69 to break
Hammond’s 90-year record for a five-test season’s aggregate. This is stretching
it a bit as Hammond made 903 in one Ashes series whereas Labuschange’s runs have
been made over two series, but it would have been something to have been there
and I was sorry that he fell ten short.
There
was some distraction late in the innings as Aleem Dar became agitated about the
batsmen running on forbidden parts of the pitch, like a father protecting a
daughter’s honour. A warning was followed summarily by the imposition of a
five-run penalty. Dar would have preferred to have had a shotgun with which he
could have forced Labuschagne to marry the pitch to protect its reputation.
At
first nobody knew whether the five runs were to be added or deducted, or to or
from what. It emerged that New Zealand’s first innings gained five runs, so for
the first time in the series New Zealand had saved the follow on! What a time
to be alive!
The declaration
came with Labuschagne’s dismissal, leaving New Zealand a notional target of 416,
or to bat for four-and-a-half sessions. But willing either of these outcomes
would be like going to Romeo and Juliet in the hope of seeing a wedding
in the final scene. Instead, everybody knew that the ending would be painful.
It was less spectating and more being at the bedside as the patient slipped
away.
At 22
for four, passing New Zealand’s 65-year-old record low of 26 could not be taken
for granted. Ross Taylor played some bold shots down the ground that took him
past Stephen Fleming’s 7,172 to become New Zealand’s biggest scorer in tests. I
first came across him almost two decades ago as a 16-year-old playing for the New
Zealand Under 19s. No question about the talent, but he had and has the mental
strength to go with it, and to carry on a while longer, apparently, keeping the
record warm for Kane Williamson.
De
Grandhomme and Watling put on 69 in their contrasting styles to show that the pitch
was not necessarily as toxic as the top order had made it appear. In the
batsmen’s defence more dismissals than in the first innings were down to
quality deliveries, notably Cummins’ dismissal of Taylor. James Pattinson’s catch
to dismiss Astle, sprinting 30 metres then a full-length dive, was the catch of
this series and plenty of others.
Last
time I watched a test at the SCG Stuart MacGill took 12 wickets; this time, Nathan
Lyon had ten, a supreme display of spin bowling on a pitch that gave him no
more than moderate help.
Final
thoughts
Australia,
once more, has a very fine cricket team. Warner and Smith have returned and
Labuschagne has emerged, giving them three batsmen performing at world class.
The pace attack contends with India’s as the best around, and Lyon is
brilliant. Australia would have beaten any and all opponents over Christmas and
the New Year (though the visit of India next season will be interesting).
Nevertheless,
New Zealand’s performance in this series was hugely disappointing. Not just beaten
three-nil, but beaten by such wide margins with such little fight, the second
and third tests carbon copies of the first.
New
Zealand began the series as the second-ranked test team. At least four of the team
would be strong contenders for an All-Time New Zealand XI. We all knew that it
would be difficult, but hoped for a performance that would erode our historical
inferiority complex in trans-Tasman cricket, not augment it.
That
all three tests finished in four days was awkward, at a time when the barbarians
are at the gate, shouting for that to be the standard duration. It is difficult
to explain that a test that finishes in four days might have had a different
outcome if scheduled for four rather than five. New Zealand might have saved this
game and perhaps one of the others had survival over four days been possible;
the chasm between the two teams might have been disguised, which would have
been wrong.
A strong
performance might have brought New Zealand in from the fringes of international
cricket, the country cousin surviving on the oxymoron of two-test series.
The
strong turnout of New Zealanders means that we probably won’t have to wait
another 32 years for an invitation to the Boxing Day/New Year party, assuming
that it remains possible to play cricket in Australia at that time of year,
something can’t be assumed given the sight of the Harbour Bridge shrouded in smoke
haze on the day I departed.
