Christmas Eve at the Cricket

Wellington v Otago

Women

Men

Until the 1970s, provincial cricket was played on Christmas Day in New Zealand. There would be a late start to allow for the hasty opening of presents and the bolting down of some turkey, but the afternoon could be spent on the bank at the Basin, Lancaster Park or Carisbrook. Perhaps it is as well that the practice was abandoned; the ensuing negotiations would be tricky in many households.

In Wellington we have the pleasing new tradition (this is its third year, so “tradition” passes, just) of Christmas Eve cricket, a T20 double-header, to be precise.

All fixtures in New Zealand’s domestic T20 competition—not merely the “Smash” but the “Super Smash”—pair a women’s game with that of the same men’s teams, the women usually (but not always) playing first. All games are shown on television, with 18 of the men’s games and 15 of the women’s free-to-air (with the imminent closure of rights-holders Spark Sport, from next season all domestic and international cricket in New Zealand will be free-to-air for three seasons).

The Basin is at its best at this time of year. The cricket-ball red flowers of the puhutukawa trees bloom for Christmas, draping a crimson ribbon round the ground and up the hill to Government House. The bank was near-full, with an increasing number of spectators arriving in time to take in most of the women’s game. Despite the presence of Billy Bowden, Rain-deviner-in-chief, the sun was out, and all was right with the world.

Otago will look back at both games with the ruefulness of a child who wakes up on Christmas Day to find that Santa has stolen their presents from under the tree. They could and should have won them both.

When both Kerr sisters were out with the score on 110 in the 17th over it seemed that Wellington would be some way short of setting a challenging target, but Maddy Green and Leigh Kasperek took 31 from the final two overs to finish the innings on 146 for five, very attainable with Suzie Bates opening for Otago.

With Ebrahim, Bates put on 49 for the third wicket, but five was the most scored from any over between the third and the ninth, which left an asking rate of almost ten an over, unsustainable against an attack of the quality of Wellington’s. The innings subsided like a sherry-filled grandma into an armchair after the Christmas pudding. Wellington won by 19 runs. Kasperek was the best bowler with three for 16. Her omission from New Zealand’s World Cup squad last year remains mystifying.

For the men, Adam Milne made his Wellington debut, after 12 years with Central Districts. As Kent fans know, Milne is a quality bowler who offers a desirable combination of pace and smarts, so the Basin faithful were pleased to hear that he was coming to the capital. However, some of us were sceptical that we would ever see him in a Wellington shirt on the field of play, given that he is a regular in the white-ball national squad, in demand from the franchises, and more prone to breakage than a Chinese vase in a situation comedy. Yet here he was.

The match followed the pattern of that of the women. Wellington batted first and reached an underwhelming 152. It was only thanks to Rachin Ravindra that it was that many. Regular readers may be rather bored by my regular extolling of Ravindra’s qualities and class, but I can merely report what I see. Here, once more, time appeared to move more slowly when he was at the crease, such was the facility of his shots.

A team chasing a modest total and that is 80 for one after 12 overs, as Otago were, should not lose. But they blew it. Run rates that were unimaginable twenty years ago are now commonplace. Ten an over is the new six an over. But this is not an entitlement, as Otago demonstrated here. They were complacent, expecting to go up through the gears as they wanted. When 29 came from overs 17 and 18 they would have considered themselves on track, but no further boundaries ensued and they lost by eight runs. They had the chance to secure the game earlier and should have taken it.

 

 

Three days at the Plunket Shield

Wellington v Central Districts, Basin Reserve, 17 – 20 March 2018

Over the two weekends before I went down to Christchurch for the test match, I was able to watch three days of Plunket Shield cricket, New Zealand’s equivalent of the County Championship. They turned out to be decisive in deciding the winner of this season’s competition.

Like first-class competitions the world over, the Plunket Shield is the discarded novel of the cricket calendar. Put down at the end of the November, it is picked up again at the beginning of March, without anybody having any clear memory of the plot or the characters.

I was at the Basin for the first of two days of the game between Wellington and Central Districts in the eighth of the competition’s ten rounds It began with Wellington leading the table with Central second, so a home win would be a large step to Wellington’s first title since 2004.

I have preached before about the necessity of getting to the cricket on time. This is doubly the case for cricket at the Basin where the pitch awakes vigorously with the dawn chorus before settling down by lunchtime for a four-day snooze. Returning readers may recall that earlier this season, Auckland were 12 for seven early in the piece and that Wellington were 246 without loss by the end of the day.

Central put Wellington in. Adam Milne, once more of Kent, opened the bowling to Michael Papps:

·        1^st ball—edged between third slip and gully for four.

·        2^nd ball—diving catch in the gully. Steven Murdoch is in.

·        3^rd ball—edged to second slip, keeper caught the rebound, Murdoch is out. Four for two.

Luke Woodcock and Michael Bracewell survived the rest of a testing opening spell from Milne, resolutely leaving on length, even with the ball almost brushing the bails. Jesse Ryder was the surprise choice to replace Milne. Kent people who have seen Ryder regularly run through the county’s order would spot the danger here, but Bracewell did not and lashed out at the first ball, well wide of off stump, to be caught behind. He was a soldier who survived battle but who then succumbed to a dodgy prawn sandwich on the way home.

New Zealand is as replete with young South Africans as English cricket is. Two were important here. Willem Ludick was on first-class debut. The final day of this game was his 21^st birthday. He is well on the brisk side of medium and took two wickets as Wellington were reduced to 99 for five by early afternoon.

This brought in Malcolm Nofal, a 26-year-old left-hander from Johannesburg, on first-class debut for Wellington having played a handful of games for Gauteng, the last four years ago.

He joined Luke Woodcock. Has anybody ever seen Woodcock and Darren Stevens in the same room? Both are balding and tending to the portly, yet perform rescue operations of Tracy brothers proportions as a matter of routine. In the morning, Woodcock was a fortress, holding ground that others were conceding. In the afternoon he began to make forays into opposition territory and by the evening was advancing on all fronts.

Woodcock and Nofal put on 247 for the sixth wicket before Woodcock went for 147 near the end of the day. I made a note that it was a long time since I had seen so many cross-bat shots in one day, a measure of the predictability of the Basin pitch, and how the Central attack flagged. 226 of Wellington’s 365 for six for the day came after the halfway point.

Nofal continued to bash away on the second morning, with enthusiastic assistance from Nos 8, 9 and 10—Patel, Newton and McPeake respectively—who bludgeoned 119 between them. Wellington were all out for 530. Nofal was eighth out for 175, which, as we will see, left the Wellington selectors less impressed than might have been thought.

Nineteen-year-old slow-left-armer debutant Felix Murray had begun with ten from his first nine overs while Wellington were still in defensive mode, but conceded 79 from his remaining nine. Murray had stepped into the shoes of Ajaz Patel (who had been called up for the test warm-up in Hamilton), or possibly into Patel’s shirt and trousers, both of which appeared to be three or four sizes too big for him.

Ben Smith fell early in the Central reply, lbw with bat raised. It looked a bowler’s decision, but as Arthur Jepson used to say “there’s a reason tha’s got a bat in thy ‘and”.

The highlight of the rest of the day was Jesse Ryder’s 69 from 85 balls, with two sixes. I wonder how much longer he’ll stick around. He is good enough to carry on making runs for another ten years, but can he be bothered with everything that goes with it? Watching him bat has been one of this season’s greatest pleasures.

Central were 226 for three when my two days at the game ended. Unlike Wellington, nobody kicked on to a century and they were 107 behind on first innings. They made no attempt on the target of 372, focusing instead on stopping Wellington for collecting the 12 points for a win, which they achieved with just two wickets to spare. With two rounds to go, Wellington now led Central by eight points.

One other unfortunate curiosity to emerge from the second day was that, though there were no more than 100 watching the game, one of them was ejected for bad behaviour, trespassed no less, with police officers called. Is this the smallest crowd to have one of its number expelled? I suppose we should be grateful that the Plunket Shield still evokes such passion.

Wellington v Northern Districts, Basin Reserve, 25 – 28 March 2018

A week later I was back at the Basin for the first day of round nine. Northern Districts were the visitors. Tom Blundell returned from New Zealand A duty and Wellington chose to go in with an extra bowler, Alex Ridley. So Wellington’s seventh-wicket partnership was Newton and Ridley. There’s a Rovers Return joke in there somewhere.

The selection meant that Malcolm Nofal’s 175 was not enough to keep him in the side. Wellington’s scorer Ian Smith (no relation to the keeper-commentator of the same name) was prompted to recall that as a boy he had seen Dickie Bird’s famous 181 not out for Yorkshire against Glamorgan at Bradford, after which Bird was dropped as we have heard so often since.  

The spirit of HD Bird was certainly with us today. Twenty-five minutes in, Wellington, put in by Northern, were 15 without loss. It was as uneventful an opening half-hour as we have seen at the Basin for a long time, the pitch offering none of its customary early-morning spite. Then Anton Devcich slipped on the opposite edge of the square to the pitch and it was all on. Umpires Dempsey and Gillies stood over the damp patch with the solemnity of statesmen dividing a small country. The players were sent back to the rooms while deliberations continued.  Dempsey has recent form in the cricket-prevention stakes. He was officiating at Rangiora the week before, when the game was abandoned on the second day because of a pitch so dangerous that Canterbury had scored no more than 485 for six declared a few hours before.

Umpires and groundstaff stood around the quagmire doing nothing that might affect the situation beyond blocking out the sun. Nevertheless, twenty minutes of this did the trick and play resumed. Cricket, eh?

Michael Papps followed one down the legside to be caught behind, but otherwise Wellington proceeded to 90 for one shortly before lunch with no reason to think that the pitch wouldn’t offer up the easy runs that are the norm on the first afternoon at the Basin.

We were unprepared for Ish Sodhi destroying Wellington’s season in a couple of hours. In my view Sodhi should not have been in Wellington; his proper place was in the test team in Auckland rather than Todd Astle, who is a fair leg-spinner, but who could not have treated us to the masterly display of the art that Sodhi offered us here. Bowling unchanged from the southern end, he took seven for 30 from 15.3 overs.

Sodhi didn’t just get the Wellington batsmen out; he made them look hapless and clueless, children bewildered by a magician at a birthday party. He was magnificent. The last nine wickets added only 47.

By the end of the day Northern were 168 for four. Corey Anderson made 61 of these from 65 balls with three sixes. He is a wonderfully clean striker of a cricket ball, and if Somerset can lay their hands on sufficient cotton wool to wrap his fragile physique in between games he will be a real asset in the T20.

I wasn’t there on the second day, which was all Northern needed to wrap it up. Jeetan Patel took five, but Northern still had a lead of 186, which Wellington couldn’t match second time round. Sodhi took five more. Meanwhile in Napier, Central were beating Canterbury by an innings to takeover at the top of the table. Wellington were beaten in the last round, so a draw was enough to secure the Plunket Shield for Central Districts.

Those two hours of magic from Ish Sodhi had cost Wellington the prize. I saw Sodhi play again later that week, in the test at Christchurch. I thought that Kane Williamson might have given him longer spells. His match-saving 56 not out should ensure that his batting will no longer be a negative factor at selectors’ meetings.

As we in New Zealand embark on our annual endeavour to winter well, we hand the responsibility of serious cricket watching over to our friends in the north.

New Zealand v Pakistan, T20, The Cake Tin, 22 January 2016

Scorecard

We still haven’t worked out T20 here in New Zealand. I don’t mean in the playing sense. On good days, we are better than most, as shown by the 95-run trouncing of Pakistan at the Cake Tin, following a ten-wicket victory in Hamilton earlier in the week.

What we haven’t got to grips with is the place of T20 in our cricket. Tonight, 70,000 or more will be at the MCG for the final of the Big B(r)ash. The kiwi equivalent, the final of the Super Smash, was played in front of no more than 400 a week before Christmas on a rugby ground in a province that did not make the finals weekend. In marketing terms, touring Jesus Christ Superstar in Syria would be a better proposition.

Clearly, the New Zealand’s T20 should take place over the late December/January holiday season, at the places where people are at that time: Mt Maunganui, Napier, Queenstown and so on. Just as it was until a couple of years ago, in fact. It could feed off the Big Bash in marketing terms and might attract a few county biffers who fancy Christmas in the sun. There could be an auction. Or at least a jumble sale.

This proposal is purely altruistic, obviously. For my own pleasure I would return to the days when the Plunket Shield began on Christmas Day, though that would instigate tricky negotiations here at My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers.

I take what I can from T20 games, and try to look cheerful. At the Cake Tin on Friday there was plenty to enjoy. Martin Guptill driving is as handsome a sight as contemporary cricket has to offer. As usual, his shots were orthodox, each one chosen to fit the ball delivered. This game confirmed a trend away from the reverse pulls, scoops and other inventions that once seemed about to render the MCC coaching book obsolete. Here, and in such Big Bash as I have seen, the trick shots seem to have reverted to being an occasional variation to the main theme.

As ever, Kane Williamson was everybody’s sensible older brother (his running calls the only hint that he might enjoy a few quiet ones of a Friday night). Corey Anderson’s undefeated 82 from 42 balls was the batting highlight, once he got over an early spell when his timing was out. He took two for 15 in three overs too. Anderson might just be to New Zealand what the New Zealander Stokes is to England: an all-rounder for the next decade.

Adam Milne took three for eight in three overs; he was too quick for them, simple as that. Many of us hope that the selectors will give him a run in a test match on the right surface. Four or five three-over spells in a day is all we would ask. If my observation about the Basin being quicker this year is correct, against Australia in February could be the time, especially with Johnson gone and Starc injured.

Grant Elliott bettered Milne by one run: three for seven. Hard to think that this time last year there was disbelief—scoffing even—at Elliott’s selection for the World Cup. Now he is a national symbol for dependability, a cricketing Volvo estate.

Elliott introduced an element of unorthodoxy to the batting: when facing a free-hit ball he took guard well wide of off stump, inviting the bowler to aim at the stumps. With batsmen now so much more adept at moving around the crease, the time has come to offer the bowlers more leeway, certainly in T20, but possibly in 50-over cricket too. A stumps-wide channel down the legside should be a legitimate operating area for the bowler. Cricket is at its best when bat and ball are in balance.

It was good to see Mohammad Amir back from his five-year ban and custodial sentence for bowling deliberate no-balls for betting purposes. He was still a boy when he was bullied into it, and the punishment (unlike that for Salman Butt) seemed harsh. I hope that the cricket world rallies around him.

If you go to a big T20 match there is no point in railing against the razzmatazz; the music, the lights, the hype are part of the package, and to suggest that it should be different would be to ask that a man carrying a flag precedes a motor car. It is the small things that are the most telling about how far we have come. Here, I was the only spectator I saw with binoculars around his neck, but then I have reached the stage in life where I accept that my role is often to add quaintness to the occasion.

The music was mostly ok, but almost all from the contemporary hit parade. Not until Bridge Over Troubled Water appeared late on could I name that tune. I propose that for the first six overs there should be only two fielders outside the circle and only Beatles and Stones through the speakers.

It was pleasing to see 16,000 or so enjoying themselves, and it is difficult to see a downside to the full grounds in Australia for the Big Bash. But I do worry. How long before the commercial interests start to demand that the best players are available for the biggest crowds and want to make the Melbourne Big Bash Boxing Day game a tradition?

New Zealand v England, World Cup, 20 February 2015, the Cake Tin

New Zealand v England, World Cup, 20 February 2015, the Cake Tin

The other day Corey Anderson said that the New Zealand team was a “juggernaut”, which in Britain describes a large truck. That makes England the rabbit transfixed by the headlights, unable to evade the inevitable squashing.

It was sheer joy at the Cake Tin yesterday. For a start, it was sweltering, a word we use sparingly in Wellington. My Khandallah correspondent, who has spent her life under the scorching sun of the upper North Island, passed the first two hours charting the approach of the shade towards our seats.

And I saw the best one-day bowling that I have ever seen; the most spectacular innings I have ever seen; and captaincy so rich in innovation and imagination that it moved me.

McCullum’s field-setting was worth the price of admission. He makes Mike Brearley—who once stationed a helmet at short extra cover—appear cautious and unresourceful by comparison.

The New Zealand captain is in the process of rewriting the one-day captaincy manual. There were three close catchers, then four, then five, then—for Morgan—six. It was breath-taking. McCullum rejects orthodoxy as if it were carrying the plague. His strategy is to restrict scoring by taking wickets. Ross Taylor could play for another 20 years if he can stand at first slip all innings.

McCullum’s conception of cricket’s possibilities is different and exciting. If all captains would commit to attack as he does, all fears about the future of 50-over cricket would be allayed. My Life in Cricket Scorecards is no musician, but watching Brendon McCullum lead a cricket team must be what it would have been like watching von Karajan at his peak conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. A little louder from the piccolos, a second gully. Slightly slower cellos, third man move squarer.

Regular wickets kept the pressure on England in the first part of the innings. Eoin Morgan looked as scratchy as a flea-ridden tabby, but is a good player who could relocate his form at any moment. At 104 for three, Morgan and Joe Root seemed to be close to restoring parity. Who would have guessed then that the game had fewer than 20 overs left to run?

They were a bit slow, mainly thanks to a miserly spell of six overs for 17 runs from Daniel Vettori, who reminded me of Derek Underwood. This was partly because Vettori is a highly skilled and very clever slow left-armer, but also because the batsmen were playing his reputation as much as his bowling. Time and time again I saw batsmen retreat into caution against Underwood because of the years they had spent watching the consequences of failure. Joe Root and his generation cannot remember a time when Vettori was anything other than a one-day tourniquet and it shows in their approach.

England appeared to have decided to play Vettori out, but Morgan’s resolve broke and he went for the big straight shot. My correspondent and myself had a perfect view of the ball coming towards us. It appeared to be about to pitch safe just short of the long-on boundary. But Adam Milne lengthened his last couple of strides before leaping full length, taking the ball in two hands in mid-air and landing safely. That was the moment the game turned on.

McCullum struck with the certainty of a lioness stalking a wounded wildebeest. Southee was brought on at once and immediately bowled Taylor with an outswinger so beautiful that Mark Antony would have spurned Cleopatra to kiss it.

Of course, other captains might have brought back their strike bowler against a new batsman, but fewer would have resisted the temptation to save some of that bowler’s overs for the death. They would have settled for 210 for eight. Only McCullum would have also bowled his other strike bowler out at the same time. 123 all out.

Seven wickets fell for nineteen runs. As an overseer of collapses Peter Moores could arrange a job swap with the Greek finance minister. Joe Root barely faced a ball during these overs, an example of the lack of intelligence that characterised England’s day.

Tim Southee was brilliant. Seven for 33 was the best performance for New Zealand in ODIs. His control of the ball and use of the crease could not have been bettered by Alderman, or even Hadlee. Four of the seven were bowled, all with a graze of the off stump (love the flashing bails by the way). The swing was not huge, but with such precision it did not have to be.

There was no doubt that McCullum would go after the bowling. His name and “steady accumulation” are antonyms. But the ferocity and accomplishment was beyond prediction, best recorded in his scoring sequence: 160044444016404606666401W. It was slugging not slogging, the quickest fifty in World Cup history (previous holder: B McCullum). As in every other aspect of the game, McCullum incinerates the text book and does it his way.

Anderson, Finn and Broad are seasoned international bowlers, but the experience of having an opening batsman rampaging down the pitch in the first overs appeared new to them. There was no plan. They didn’t know what to do.

The four consecutive sixes were off Steve Finn in an arc between cover and long off. One worries for Finn for whom, even more than most bowlers, confidence is the glue that holds his game together. Half an hour in the public stocks would have been no more humiliating.

On a desperate day for England, one member of the team deserves special mention. A woolly resident of any field in New Zealand selected at random would have brought more brainpower to the game than Stuart Broad managed. Who knows why, coming in at 110 for seven, he thought that the best way to deal with Southee (five for 28) was to try to belt him over long on? His first ball to McCullum fed the batsman’s signature lofted cut, and the rest of the over allowed the New Zealand captain to set off flying. That Broad should finish the game with a high-wide bouncer that flew over Buttler’s head to the boundary was somehow fitting.

I can barely express how much I enjoyed this game. New Zealand pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. England gloriously hopeless. Just when you think that cricket has given you all it can along comes Brendon McCullum who says “let’s make it a little bit better”. 

New Zealand v West Indies, T20, The Cake Tin, Wellington, 15 January 2014

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-v-west-indies-2013-14/engine/match/661697.html

There is a gap in these columns where the report on the final two days of the second Test between New Zealand and the West Indies should be. A pleasant weekend at the Basin was cancelled because the West Indies had folded like the Himalayas in the Late Cretaceous Period halfway through the third afternoon.

To see a team struggling so in the colours worn by Sobers, Lloyd, Richards, Marshall and so many other great players is unbearably sad for someone whose interest in cricket was sparked by the joy and skill of the great West Indian teams of the sixties and seventies.

New Zealand won the Test series two-nil. It would have been three had somebody in the home camp had the sense to keep an eye on the rain radar in Dunedin and given the batsmen the hurry up in their pursuit of a modest target of 112. The ODI series was shared 2-2 (just enough to keep New Zealand ahead of Bangladesh in the rankings) and New Zealand won the first T20 game by 81 runs.

The West Indies won the toss and chose to bat on an evening when the absence of cloud persuaded spectators unfamiliar with the Cake Tin’s penguin-friendly micro-climate to leave their jerseys and jackets at home, a mistake most make only once.

A feature of international one-day and T20 cricket in New Zealand this summer has been the NZ$100,000 on offer at each match for spectator catches. There are strict conditions: catches have to be one-handed and the catcher has to be wearing the sponsor’s gaudy tee shirt ($25 a throw) and lanyard. As a purist I might be expected to be sniffy about this, but it’s great fun. It also makes people watch the cricket more; the Mexican wave did not start until the game was almost over. Only one prize was claimed in the five games against the West Indies. The sponsors have banked on greed-inspired confusion to reduce the chances of their having to cough up; with 100,000 grand at stake, cries of “yours” are rare. At the Cake Tin today a catch was taken, by a man holding chips in his other hand, but he was not wearing the shirt. The best chance was foiled by another spectator hurling themselves in front of the guy poised to take the catch. Entertaining as it is, I predict that there will be trouble before long. Either someone will hurl themselves over the edge of a stand or they will biff someone else who gets in the way.

My Khandallah correspondent was keen that I should invest in a shirt and had an alarmingly high expectation that I would return to My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers pockets stuffed with cash. I explained that the nearest I have come to taking a crowd catch in almost half a century of spectating was at Mote Park in the eighties when a six was heading straight for me in my boundary deckchair, in which I became unfortunately entangled as I rose to take the catch. Only by dropping to the ground at the last moment did I avoid a serious head injury. I did not buy a shirt today.

Lendl Simmons got the West Indies away to a decent start with 29, 26 of which came from boundaries. The best batting of the innings came at the end from Dinesh Ramdin who bustled along intelligently to an unbeaten 55 from 31 balls, taking his side to 159, about par it was generally thought. Nathan McCullum was outstanding, conceding just 17 from his four overs. The pace of Adam Milne—150 kph or thereabouts—was also effective, and most encouraging for those of us who hanker for the days when Shane Bond put the wind up batsmen across the globe. Milne has been injured subsequently, of course.

At 79 for five it looked as if New Zealand were missing the boat, but a partnership of 68 in seven overs between Taylor and Ronchi took them to the brink of victory. This was the new Ross Taylor with added contemplation, and he has gone cold turkey on the slog sweep. The big hitting was left to Luke Ronchi, who not only hits, but hits straight. Readers should wipe from their memories my recent call for him to be replaced by BJ Watling.

The fielding was the difference in the end. New Zealand’s performance was almost flawless and at times—Corey Anderson’s contortions to knock back a ball that was in the air at least a foot over the boundary—astonishing. The West Indies missed four chances, none easy, but any which might have changed the result.

It was a good game of cricket, within the constraints of T20 at least. There were ebbs and flows and the result was in doubt almost throughout. It will be back to the Cake Tin in a couple of weeks for an ODI against India.