Day three
Four
o’clock. That was when I told my Khandallah correspondent to expect my return
to My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers, having watched New Zealand lose the test
match. Many would have thought that a conservative estimate; after all, taxonomists
mostly classify New Zealand’s batting under “invertebrate”.
That is what
is so wonderful about test cricket. Nobody had a clue that we would see the
start of New Zealand’s finest test match innings, or that it would lead a rearguard
action that would draw the match and win the series. Four million looking a
billion in the face and not blinking. What is more, our appreciation of what we
had seen had not advanced much by the time we left the ground at 6.30. Test
match cricket possesses a paradox that few if any other sports do: that you may
not understand what you have seen until several days later.
There was
little in the first half of the day to suggest that anything other than the
tiresomely predictable was on. At afternoon drinks New Zealand were 121 for
five, 125 short of making India bat again and a four pm homecoming still on the
cards.
With Ross
Taylor absent for the birth of his second child, a disproportionate amount of New
Zealand’s hopes went out of the window in the second over of the day when Kane
Williamson was caught behind off Zaheer Khan. This brought together two young
left-handers—Rutherford and Latham—who, if every gram of their promise is
turned into performance, will spend many hours together at the crease in the
decade to come.
Not today,
however. Rutherford had reached 35 when he mimicked Williamson’s mode of
dismissal. This was a better ball though, swinging away late down the line of
off stump.
Let it be
recorded that Brendon McCullum came in at this point, with his side 52 for
three. A pensive period of play followed, until half an hour or so before lunch
something happened that did not seem to matter much at the time. McCullum completely
mistimed a drive to a full-length ball from Mohammed Shami. Virat Kohli, at a
very straight silly mid-on, spilled a reasonably simple chance. See my remarks
about not understanding what you have seen, above. In that moment the match and
the series slipped away from India.
Tom Latham
became Dhoni’s third victim of the session from the first ball of the last over
before lunch. It was a nothing shot, pushing outside off at a ball that could
easily have been left alone. Corey Anderson lasted only six balls before giving
Jadeja a return catch off the leading edge. BJ Watling now joined McCullum.
Play until
tea was a throwback to an earlier time, exactly two an over from 26 overs.
Again, it did not seem as gripping as it actually was, as the idea that New
Zealand could hang on for long enough to save the game seemed the sort of
proposition that might eminate only from an email of Nigerian origin. And
McCullum was dropped again, a harder chance than the previous one. Ishant
Sharma could not quite hold on to a return catch as he followed through, one of
those chances that comes down entirely to instinct.
Up to this
point McCullum had batted against type, focusing purely on defence. It was Ken
Dodd playing Hamlet. Perhaps he decided to add a shot of caffeine to his play
to make him more alert, or maybe the Indian attack became stale. Whatever the
reason, it was the authentic McCullum who resumed after tea, no chance to score
spurned. He went from 50 to 100 at a run a ball, reaching three figures by
putting Sharma into the crowd at long on. Like the rest of us, India had no
appreciation of what was going on and were mentally heading for the airport doing
nothing more than waiting for the batsmen to make mistakes.
Praise for
BJ Watling should be fulsome too. At the end of the day he had 52 from 202
balls. More and more it seems that Watling has the temperament of a test
player. New Zealand took the lead shortly before the end of the day, and we
left the ground heartened by a performance that had heart and character. But we
also knew that New Zealand would have to bat for another day to put the game
beyond India, whose strokeplayers could rattle up 250-plus on a pitch that had
not given up a wicket in almost two sessions. We had seen the Holy Grail but
mistaken it for a shiny egg cup.
Days four and five
I was not at
the Basin for the final two days but, in common with much of the population of
New Zealand it seems, followed the game at a distance and watched the
recordings later. Brendon McCullum batted throughout the fourth day and reached
his triple century early on the fifth morning, watched by a crowd which
contained the largest proportion of spectators dressed in suits and ties seen in
New Zealand since the thirties. All over Wellington men of a certain age were
seen hurrying to an urgent 11 am meeting at an undisclosed location.
McCullum was
supported royally by Watling, who reached 124 from 367 balls, and Jimmy Neesham,
who took a debut century off a tired attack from 123 balls. When I first saw
Neesham I wrote how comfortable he looked at provincial level, and have the
same opinion a grade higher. This is not say that he is the finished article,
not by a long chalk, but there is enough emerging talent in New Zealand cricket
for us to approach the future with our usual apprehension diluted somewhat.
So how good
was McCullum’s innings? I have given it more than three months, in attempt to
achieve perspective, only to find that there isn’t any. It was the finest
innings ever played by a New Zealander in a test match, and not just because it
was the biggest and the longest. Had McCullum been out at any point before he
passed 250—about an hour before the end of the fourth day—New Zealand would
almost certainly have lost.
Search the
records and it is difficult to find an innings quite like it, one of such
sustained defiance in the face of defeat. Hanif Mohammad’s 337 against the West
Indies in 1958 is the only comparable triple century (and the only higher score
in a team’s second innings). The danger of defeat was present almost throughout
then too, but it was dour defence all the way, unleavened by McCullum’s
willingness to take them on. Pakistan progressed at only a fraction over two an
over. Had McCullum been as stately, New Zealand would have lost.
Martin Crowe’s
299 against Sri Lanka at the Basin in 1991 (still unwise to say “hey Marty, one
short eh?” by the way) was also in pursuit of a large deficit, but he came in
at 148 for two and the danger of defeat passed sooner.
VVS Laxman’s
281 in the greatest of all Tests, at Kolkota in 2001 also saw the prospect of
losing the game recede at an earlier point. There are many other examples of
fine, courageous long innings that saved teams from defeat, but none with the
odds against success stacked so highly for so long. One of test cricket’s
greatest innings, beyond question.
It was the
highest innings of which I have seen part, eclipsing the fruitlessly tedious
275 to which Darryl Cullinan subjected us at Eden Park in 1999 despite Amnesty
International’s intervention. It was a privilege to be there. If only we Sunday
spectators could have appreciated quite what it was we were watching.
A note for my fellow pedants
Ever since I
started writing Scorecards I have
agonised about the use of the upper case for “test” as in match. When I worked
for CricInfo its style guide (a thin
publication) insisted that the word should always begin with a “T”. It has
never made any sense to me to have an upper-case adjective followed by a
lower-case noun. So with a shout of “Eureka!” I have decided that from now on
in these columns it will be “test’ as an adjective and “Test” as a noun.
Now, should “Eureka!”
begin with the upper case?...
