The CricInfo Years Part 4: 2002/03

 

The final part of the series on my four years as a reporter for CricInfo in New Zealand: 2002/03.

CricInfo was a fine example of the potential of the internet and of the wild overestimates of its ability to turn tech into profit. Founded in 1993 by cricket enthusiast Simon King at the University of Minnesota as a safe place for cricket nerds, it rode the crest of the dotcom boom wave, valued (according to Wikipedia) at US$150 million in 2000. There was no limit to its ambition, which happily included the setting up of the New Zealand operation.

This was based in Christchurch, in a modest suite of offices, proficiently managed by Lynn McConnell, who brought with him the tested disciplines of a distinguished career in newspaper journalism. If the New Zealand model had been applied worldwide things might have gone better. But the UK operation for one, based in a converted manor house in the Wiltshire countryside, was more profligate. A visitor from the New Zealand team observed that he would not have thought it possible that so many people could produce so little in the course of a working day.

The editorship of the daily CricInfo newsletter was passed around the world so that an off-season office was in charge. McConnell took this role for three months or so, never missing a deadline or a story, seven days a week. He then passed it on to the UK office, which announced that the newsletter would now only be published from Monday to Friday as they didn’t care to work at the weekends.

The 2001/02 season had ended uncertainly. The final pay for the season was delayed and it became clear that the “dotcom boom” was actually the sound of it exploding into tiny fragments. Even those of us without a business brain began to work out that a site that carried almost no advertising had to be in some sort of trouble.

So the news that live coverage of domestic cricket was to be pared back to just the 50-over competition came as no surprise (this was before T20 burst upon us in the English season of 2003). I was assigned Northern Districts’ five round-robin games.

I still had my media pass for all cricket that season and used it to gain free admission to the second test of two against India at Seddon Park (then WestPac Park). The first day had been washed out. I was at work in Rotorua until midday on Friday, but still made it to Hamilton before the delayed first ball was bowled at 4 30pm. I did not expect to have seen an entire test match by the time I returned to work on Monday morning, but that is what happened.

When the pitch was unveiled it was the bottle-green colour only a few shades deeper than what was usual at the ground, which had an excellent reputation at that time and did not usually offer bowlers more help than was reasonable at the start of a first-class game.  The difference here was that it was wet close to the surface, which assisted the bowlers in cricketing terms as much as paying off their mortgages and buying them all a Ferrari might have done in their lives generally.

By the close India were 98 for eight, adding only more for the last two wickets the following morning. VVS Laxman was highest scorer with 23, Harbhajan Singh’s 20, consisting of five fours, the only other in double figures. Lynn McConnell reported that “the off-spinner unveiled an array of shots which were probably best suited to other sports”. Four wickets each for Bond and Tuffey.

Yet it was enough for a first-innings lead. Stephen Fleming’s 21 was the highest score in a total of 94. The notes on CricInfo’s scorecard say that it was the first time that neither side had reached 100 in a completed first innings of a test match.

That India got as many as 156 was due to two 30s by great batsmen: Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. Dravid’s 39 (the highest score of the match) was painstaking, from 100 balls. Tendulkar’s was more rapid: 32 with five fours from 48. Both have scored any number of centuries that drew less on their skill.

New Zealand needed 160 to win and took 57 overs to get them, losing wickets often enough to keep us tense. It was old-fashioned cricket, cautiously prodding the ground ahead for mines rather than charging at the guns. Appropriately, Robbie Hart, ND’s captain, hit the running win. I was pleased to see this as I had interviewed Robbie before the start of the season for an ND promotional brochure. A version appeared on CricInfo.

My reporting that season started at one of my favourite venues, Owen Delany Park in Taupo. Canterbury were the visitors. The most striking thing about the live report is that the performance of several players in this and other games at this time would influence the selection of the New Zealand squad at the upcoming World Cup. Domestic form as a selectorial aid is a notion that has become quaint in some parts of the cricketing world, most notably England (though Australia, to its credit, still holds the Sheffield Shield in high regard). I write having just watched television coverage of New Zealand team with second-string bowling attack driving our first ODI series win in India. Speaking at the end of the match, 31-year-old debutant Jayden Lennox emphasised that it was the strength of domestic cricket that enabled him and his internationally inexperienced colleagues to survive in the deep end at this level.

At Taupo, Craig McMillan illustrated this point in reverse. The Canterbury batter was having a poor run in the series of seven (!) ODIs against India. He had failed again the previous day at Napier, so somebody had the bright idea of sending him over the hill to Owen Delany Park where it was hoped his form could be found by knocking the ND attack about. In fact, he scratched about for two from 16 balls, the ND bowlers sensing prey that was lame.

I don’t say much about the pitch in the live report, but it seems that there was a sporting balance between bat and ball. For much of the reply it appeared that Canterbury’s modest looking 196 would be enough. ND did not make scoring look easy and subsided to 107 for six. A partnership of 76 between Scott Styris and Robbie Hart kept ND in the game, but they were left with 14 to win on the last over, a colossal prospect in the pre-T20 era, but one that Styris addressed by hitting the first two deliveries from Stephen Cunis for straight sixes. He took a single from the next, leaving Graeme Aldridge three balls to hit the winning run (ND had lost one more wicket than Canterbury, who would take the points in a tie). The fast bowler could only block the fourth ball. The fifth he hit straight to Paul Wiseman at mid off, expecting to be run out but giving Styris the strike for the final ball of the match. The fielder, perhaps flustered by this  kamikaze approach, let the ball through his legs and ND had won by two wickets (not the three wickets misreported by CricInfo).

Next, it was back home to Smallbone Park, Rotorua, where ND crashed and burned against Otago, going down by 79 runs. Otago’s star player was Marcel McKenzie, with a career-best score 90, a catch and a run out. I have no memory of him even though I clearly interviewed him at the close of play. I doubt that he remembers me either.

The star attraction for spectators was an Otago all-rounder playing his first cricket for more than a decade: Jeff Wilson, scorer of 44 tries in 60 internationals for the All Blacks. Wilson rejected what had become an All Black pension plan of a lucrative contract with a club in Europe, though he had many offers. Instead he went back to the distinctly unstarry world of New Zealand domestic cricket with the aim of returning to the international team, for which he had made four ODI appearances in 1993.

At Smallbone Park, Wilson conceded just eight runs in five overs. The following year he made two further appearances in ODIs as well as the inaugural T20 international, won by Australia, who took it altogether more seriously than New Zealand, who wore the retro beige kit and, in Hamish Marshall’s case, matching bouffant afro hairstyle.

ND’s three other home games were all at Seddon Park in Hamilton. The first two, against Wellington and Central Districts respectively, were notable for the return of Daniel Vettori to the ND line-up. Vettori was plucked out of domestic cricket at 18 so made few appearances for the province thereafter (in total 19 first-class and 33 List A). I’m pretty sure that this was his first appearance in a game that I reported in the three years I covered ND, though he would quite often turn up at games if he was at home in Hamilton off-duty.

Learning in the international arena benefitted Vettori’s bowling but held back his batting. So he made the most of the opportunity to open in these two games, top-scoring in both with 89 and 57 respectively. His combined figures for 20 overs were three for 52. Vettori’s performance was decisive in the 43-run defeat of Wellington, but could not avert the 100-run loss to CD. ND’s score against Wellington was enhanced by 55 extras including 31 wides.

There was another defeat in the final home round-robin game, against Auckland. ND had a fair excuse: the rain. Their innings was interrupted four times and the Aucks lost six wickets in pursuit of their reduced Duckworth-Lewis target.

I am surprised to find that, despite three home losses out of five, ND not only qualified for the knockout stage of the competition, but went on to win it. A low-scoring semi was won at the Basin Reserve. A partnership of 107 between the Marshall brothers was key in the final win at the North Harbour Stadium in Auckland (and I would have taken five or six guesses to have identified the venue).

And as far as my professional career as a cricket writer went, that was that. There was hope in the sale of CricInfo to the Wisden organisation, then owned by J Paul Getty, who had a delightful combination of a love of cricket and stacks of money. But a couple of months into the winter we had to return our laptops to Christchurch “for maintenance”. This was soon followed by the news that the New Zealand operation was shutting down. In the near quarter-century since, CricInfo reporters have been present at New Zealand grounds rarely, mostly for visits from the big three international teams and not always then.

It was an immensely enjoyable privilege to be paid to travel around the North Island to write about the cricket. I missed it when it was gone. For the next three years I watched very little cricket in person. This was partly because I was busy during the working week, and lived over an hour’s drive away from the nearest venues, but it was also because I found the experience of sitting out on the bank without a notebook in hand (and having to provide my own lunch) to be rather empty. It was not until I moved to Wellington in 2006 that the proximity of the Basin Reserve eased me into the resumption of regular attendance.

The missing pleasure of writing about the game was a gap filled by the creation of Scorecards in 2009. If you are at the Basin and come across someone making notes for no apparent reason, do say hello.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today's the Day

February 2001. Pukekura Park in New Plymouth, the most beautiful cricket ground in the world. Grassy recreations of Inca temples on three sides, ocean views on the fourth. I am there because I am paid to watch and write about cricket. The best of times.

The match is the third of a series of four-day games between the under-19 representatives of New Zealand and South Africa. I am looking forward to my first chance to watch the New Zealand captain, who has scored centuries in both preceding games. His name is Brendon McCullum.

He comes in at No 6, when the 16-year-old Ross Taylor is out. Soon, New Zealand are 93 for five. McCullum’s response? Attack. His third hundred in three matches comes up in 121 balls. As soon as he reached his century he was caught behind, playing loosely.

He returns to the pavilion furious with himself for giving it away. For most 19-year-olds, three centuries in three games would be enough. Not Brendon McCullum. There was a double there and he wanted it.

Don’t think that getting to the final will be enough for Brendon McCullum.

Report.

***********

September 1967. Herne Bay, Kent, 5.30 am. I am eight. I am catching a bus to go to Lord’s for the first time. Kent will get the glory years under way by beating Somerset in the Gillette Cup final.

There have been countless fine days in the sun since, but I have always assumed that nothing in later life could match the excitement of an eight-year-old’s anticipation of a big game.

Turns out I was wrong.

***********

June 1975. Back at Lord’s for the first World Cup final. Australia are all Chappells, fast bowlers and Aussie self-belief. But the West Indies have some exciting young players, an inspiring captain who leads the way with a century, a former captain who has been around for 18 years to steady things and they field like banshees.

They also have a point to prove.

They win.

***********

For New Zealand, this World Cup has been excitement and surprise from the start. England’s capitulation, Williamson’s six, Guptill’s double hundred, Vettori’s catch, every moment of the semi-final, McCullum’s nuclear batting, McCullum’s brain whirring away.

New Zealand has been consumed with cricket this week, if anything more than it was with the rugby world cup final in 2011, bold though that claim may seem. The nation will stop at 4 30 this afternoon.

Can’t wait.

 

New Zealand v West Indies, World Cup Quarter-final, Cake Tin, 21 March 2015

Scorecard

We’re a cautious lot, we New Zealand fans. If our interest was the theatre, we would have gone to the Cake Tin yesterday hoping for a decent performance of something worthy. Ibsen, say, or Pinter. The provincial reviews had been good, but this was the West End, the knock-out stage. All we wanted was for the Brendon McCullum Players to remember enough lines to get us to the semi-final. Instead we got the most lavish Broadway show imaginable, full orchestra song and dance from start to end. Martin Guptill: the Musical.

What I love about cricket is its capacity for surprise, its ability to exceed expectation. After, yes, half a century watching the game you think you know what the parameters are. You assume, for example, that you will never see someone, particularly a New Zealander, score 237 not out in a World Cup knock-out game.

It was glorious. This New Zealand summer has conjured up cricket that stands with the best of the past fifty years. Williamson and Watling at the Basin, Southee at the Cake Tin, Sangakkara anywhere, McCullum everywhere. This innings of Guptill’s was the best of the lot. It has to be judged against Cowdrey at Canterbury in 1975, Richards at Lord’s in 1979, Slater at Sydney in 1999, to name but three, as the best I have seen.

It was the shots he didn’t play, as much as those he did, that measured its quality. No reverse laps, ramps or premeditated movements. Pure cricket, from the Rolex timing of the push drive that sent the first ball of the innings to the straight boundary to the pull that put the ball on the roof in the final over. Watch a recording of the innings and see how straight is the backlift, even for cross-bat shots. As well as being spectacular and surprising it was aesthetically pleasing, which the best batting always is.

Incidentally, it is not true, as has been reported, that Craig McMillan is the only batsman to hit the ball onto the roof of the Cake Tin. Guptill has done it once before, off Lonwabo Tsotsobe of South Africa in a T20 in 2012, a hit estimated at 125 metres, 15 metres longer than yesterday’s. His two-fingered gesture to McMillan after the hit was not, as Simon Doull said on commentary, to say “two of us have done it” but “I’ve done it twice”. Michael Lumb of England also did it, in a T20 in 2013.

Guptill’s innings changed in tempo. At times early on runs were hard to come by. His century came up in 111 balls, which is hardly laggardly. At that point it was already a classy, memorable innings. He got there in the 35^th over, just before the start of the powerplay. With only two wickets down, the foot could be pressed firmly to the floor.

Cricket is a game of numbers, and those for this match stretch credulity. Guptill’s second century came in just 41 balls. All eleven of his sixes came after the century mark. 207 came for New Zealand from the final 15 overs, 85 from the final five. It was wonderful.

From the third ball of the first over, Marlon Samuels became Dick Rowe for a day. Rowe was the Decca Records executive who, in 1962, refused to sign the Beatles on the grounds that guitar groups were on the way out. Samuels had the opportunity to send Guptill back to the rooms, but put down a sharp but catchable low chance at square leg. That was the only one Guptill offered. Just as Rowe would have spent the following years avoiding news of the Fab Four’s record sales, so Samuels spent the next 49 overs looking in any direction but that of the scoreboards as they audited the ever-increasing scale of his error.

A word in praise of Ross Taylor, who has been a worry for New Zealand supporters during the World Cup. He is hard to get out, but has got stuck in situations that he has hit himself out of in the past. Yesterday, he began slowly, with 23 off 43 balls, but he scored a run a ball thereafter and supported Guptill superbly in a partnership of 143, an excellent platform for the ensuing carnage.

Guptill is very fast between the wickets but is sometimes more cagey about his intentions than his partner would find ideal. We had already had one episode in which he and Taylor headed intently for the same end, so it was no surprise when Taylor was run out.

Earlier, Williamson had looked in as good touch as Guptill and it was a surprise when he got out to a soft shot. Later, Anderson, Elliott, Ronchi and Vettori all added to the mayhem.

My heart was filled with joy at New Zealand’s display. Yet it was also a little broken. I have written often enough about how early exposure to the West Indians fed my love of cricket. One of them was at the Cake Tin yesterday: the great Clive Lloyd of Guyana, Lancashire and the West Indies, the captain who brought together Jamaicans, Bajans, Trinidadians et al and made them a great West Indian team.

For Clive Lloyd, watching the shambles that the West Indies became in the final fifteen overs of the New Zealand innings must have been awful. How can the team of Richards, Sobers, Marshall, Greenidge, Holding and the rest have come to this?

To see England humiliated was comedy. To see the degradation of the West Indies was tragedy. The writer Dileep Premachandran recently tweeted “each time West Indies do well, the inner 10-year-old pumps his fist”. Today, the boy wept.

Jason Holder, the 23-year-old fast bowler who has been lumbered with the captaincy, looked bereft towards the end, and placed himself at long on, symbolically near the exit to the dressing rooms. It is always a bad sign when the skipper fields on the boundary. A little later, Darren Sammy, one of many recent captains, was seen in heated debate with the bench.

The fielding lacked commitment. Where were the dives, where were the support fielders? How the crowd roared later when all three of New Zealand’s slip fielders chased a ball to the boundary. What a difference.

So it was good that the West Indies took an adventurous approach to their futile task of chasing 394 for victory. They achieved more than was expected in maintaining a rate of eight an over for the 31 overs that they lasted.

But, in the words of a young member of the catering staff who took a seat behind us when they ran out of chips, West Indies were doing well “apart from the wickets thing”. Indeed. In cricket, it’s the wickets thing that gets you in the end. The wickets fell regularly and they never stood a chance of getting near. New Zealand knew how much protection they had and did not panic.

There were two noteworthy aspects to the innings. First Daniel Vettori’s catch at third man to dismiss Samuels. Vettori has always been highly competent in the field, but has never presented the world with an athletic persona. So, when, at the age of 36, he executed a perfectly timed, improbably high standing jump to pluck the ball from the night, it was as surprising as Maggie Smith rapping.

My Blean correspondent and myself have long been connoisseurs of one-legged innings, those made by batsmen under physical duress. The benchmark has always been Basil D’Oliveira’s half-century in the Benson and Hedges final in ’76. Despite his elderly hamstring having pinged earlier, D’Oliveira almost turned the game.

There was Basharat Hassan’s century at Canterbury the following year. Also Terry (though it might have been Michael) Parlane’s hundred at the Basin four or five years ago.

Chris Gayle’s 61 from 33 balls, with eight sixes, may have beaten them all. He has a bad back and could only hobble singles when there would normally have been a safe two. All of us who thought that Gayle’s non-appearance against the UAE was simply because he couldn’t be arsed, owe him an apology. Yet his hitting was devastating, if Sisyphean.

New Zealand’s two World Cup games at the Cake Tin have been two of the best days I have ever spent at the cricket. Years hence I shall remember them if I can’t recall my own name. The nation has become consumed with cricket. You hear people talking about it as you walk down the street. I have always wanted to live in such a place.

Tuesday, South Africa, Eden Park.

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”. 

Two ODIs at the Cake Tin

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 29 January 2015

New Zealand v Pakistan, 31 January 2015

The Sri Lanka game was the seventh (seventh!) of a series already won by New Zealand. Everything now is part of the World Cup phoney war.

The World Cup will define how we remember this season, but for me “the summer of Sangakkara” would be fine. After the test match double hundred at the Basin, the great man treated us to a sumptuous century here, a Shakespearian vocabulary of shots making his bat loquacious. Only after he passed three figures did he depart from the orthodox, and it was somehow unfitting, like discovering Darcey Bussell line dancing.

Sangakkara put on 104 for the second wicket with Tillakaratne Dilshan, at which stage Sri Lanka looked set for a total well on the sunny side of 300, but they lost their puff during the powerplay and mustered only 99 runs from the last 15 overs.

As it turned out, that was plenty.

The Guptill question currently troubles New Zealand as the Schleswig-Holstein question perplexed the diplomats of mid-nineteenth century Europe. The question is “Is he any good?”. I think that he is, but continues to be unfortunate in that the only place for him is as opener. A run in the middle order or as a finisher at some point and he would be established. Here, he was out first ball.

That the World Cup squads had to be announced six weeks or more before the first ball is bowled is obviously ludicrous, redolent of an age when the teams would travel by steam packet, but it works in Guptill’s favour. It removes the question of whether he should be in the squad; he has tenure so will be given every opportunity to get into form. Even so, if I were Guptill I’d make sure that I didn’t have a selector behind me when I walked downstairs for the next couple of weeks or so.

Wickets fell regularly until, at 141 for six, the deal appeared done. But Ronchi and Vettori put on 74, including 52 in the powerplay, to bring New Zealand back into the game. However, Kulasekere yorked Ronchi off the last ball of the powerplay and that was that.

It was good to see Vettori back at his crease-wandering, angle-inventing best, but he went for six-and-a-half an over. I hope that the nagging feeling that it is a tournament too far for him proves off beam.

Forty-eight hours later we were back, Sri Lanka’s pleasant blue kit replaced by Pakistan’s luminescent Close Encounters of the Third Kind green for the first of two match series (though series isn’t quite the word for two matches).

While the other cricketing countries have been playing each other in a bewildering number of ODIs, Pakistan have remained in their tent. It showed.

Having been put in (McCullum’s probability-challenging sequence of toss losses has finally abated), only a thoroughbred half-century from Misbah-ul-Haq was other than negligible from the top order, and the final total of 210 was a hundred short.

Yet the Pakistan innings brought us the most memorable cricket of the two matches. Shahid Afridi scored 67 of the 76 runs added while he was in, and took only 29 balls about it. Of course, he’s been peppering the stands for the best part of twenty years, but I had not seen him do so in the flesh before, so had never appreciated the high degree of intelligence and science that he brings to the task. It’s great that there are still some things that you have to be there to appreciate.

This was as far from slogging as Gershwin is from the Eurovision Song Contest. He was not as premeditated as many less successful practitioners of the crash-bang arts. Most shots were a response to the ball as bowled. Setting a field to Afridi when he is firing as well as this is chasing shadows, he finds the empty spaces round the boundary so well.

Mohammad Irfan is Pakistan’s seven foot one left-arm opening bowler. He caused a few problems with height of release and the angle of delivery, and could be lethal on grounds where they have been economical with the height of the sightscreens. But he is 32 and has played only 40 ODIs and four tests, so as a secret weapon is hardly Area 51 material. As a batsman, any aspiration he has to be promoted to No 10 appears about as unrealistic as one to be an astronaut, and he is a liability in the field.

Not that he is alone in that. There was a difference of 30 to 40 runs in the fielding of the two teams. Shahid Afridi’s fury when a boundary fielder declined the opportunity to dive to save a four was as forceful as his hitting had been.

McCullum was McCullum and had a strike rate of 141 when he got one wrong and was out for 17. Another nagging feeling says that McCullum’s golden run is near its end, but we New Zealand supporters are known for our persistence in seeking black edges to silver clouds.

An unbroken stand of 112 for the fourth wicket between Ross Taylor and Grant Elliott settled the matter with more than ten overs to spare. Taylor is making runs again without looking at the top of his form, which only a very good player can do.

Three weeks ago, Elliott’s selection for the World Cup was greeted with disbelief; now, a century, a world-record partnership and a string of good performances with bat and ball (he took three wickets here) and he is the nation’s favourite.

Where does this leave us? People will try to build up a sense of excitement about the group stages, but few would put any money on any other than the top eight teams comprising the quarter finalists. Do away with the quarters and it would be a much more interesting competition.

Sri Lanka, despite the series loss, could well chalk up the three wins in a row needed to take the trophy home. Pakistan look much less likely to do so, but they have the group stages to raise their game. No Waqar or Wasim though.

New Zealand is relishing the World Cup. We do this sort of thing very well and enjoy the attention we get. We also think that we stand a chance. There is more quality in the team than we have had since Hadlee and Crowe, and there is a balance about it too. The selectors can afford to leave out decent players who would have walked into previous World Cup squads, such as Matt Henry, Doug Bracewell and BJ Watling.

I will blog and tweet from two group games and the Wellington quarter-final.

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, Day 5, Basin Reserve

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-v-sri-lanka-2014-15/engine/match/749779.html

It is a measure of how much the New Zealand team has come on that day five, though certainly exciting, was never tense. Whenever the seed of the thought that it was time for another wicket showed the least sign of germinating, a wicket would duly be taken. The only time nervousness took its seat in the RA Vance Stand was when some dark clouds appeared to the south with eight down and tea looming.

The day showed how New Zealand has grown stronger as a team. No longer do one or two individuals bear the responsibility for bringing about a win on the fifth day.

The close catching was wonderful, starting with Neesham’s fingertip grasp to get rid of Prasad early in the day. Best of all was Williamson’s catch to dismiss Mathews. Fielders often have a second, or third, grasp at a parried catch, usually desperately and unsuccessfully. Few have looked as calm or deliberate as Williamson did as he kept his eye fixed on the ball to take the catch, as if that had been the plan all along. There was a superfluous amount of national pride taken in the catch’s selection as ESPN’s play of the day.

A year ago most of us had not heard of Mark Craig. He went to the West Indies as a replacement for Jeetan Patel, who turned the trip down in favour of continuing his successful relationship with Warwickshire in county cricket. Craig claimed four wickets in each innings on debut at Sabina Park, didn’t do much for his next four tests, then took ten in the series-levelling victory against Pakistan in Sharjah, thus establishing himself over Ish Sodhi as leading spinner.

Craig did not have the metronomic accuracy or variations of flight that Daniel Vettori brought to the side, but he takes more wickets in the fourth innings than Vettori did in the final three or four years of his test career. Craig bowls more loose stuff than Vettori, but mixes them with wicket-takers.

Craig has better support than Vettori. During the morning he bowled in partnership with Trent Boult, who bowled five overs for nine runs, building the pressure that led to Craig getting two wickets in two balls at the other end.

The day’s only sour note was the dismissal of Kumar Sangakkara. BJ Watling did not even appeal for his take from an attempted cut to count as a catch. Bowler Trent Boult’s enthusiasm persuaded McCullum to make a somewhat diffident request for a review, something I am certain he would not have done for any other batsman. On the basis of a ripple on the snickometer and a faint patch on hotspot, neither of which was conclusive proof of contact, Sangakkara was given out.

This should not have been enough to overturn the umpire’s not-out decision. For that to occur, the first viewing of replays, hotspot etc should be enough to refute the original decision.

New Zealand are now fifth in the world rankings. A win in the short series in England—a realistic aspiration—would probably move them up to third. There is a resilience about the team that is new. Players who have performed adequately, such as Wagner, find that this is not enough to hold their place. Almost the whole team is young and will likely improve.

This was one of the finest test matches at which I have been present for all or most of. There has not been another at which probable victory for one team has metamorphosed into a win for the other. Perhaps the closest in this respect was the first test at Hamilton in December 1999, when the West Indies contrived to turn a first-innings opening stand of 276 (Sherwin and Campbell were the batsmen) into an eight-wicket defeat.

There was individual brilliance from a great player and a great player to-be. The southerly showed mercy on us for three of the five days, and my yellow-spined family has two new members (1943 and 1953). A perfect start to 2015.

Wellington v Northern Districts, T20, Basin Reserve, 11 January 2012

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-domestic-2011/engine/current/match/526638.html

The pohutukawas are out so the Basin is wrapped in cardinal's scarlet, even if more fitting attire for today's match – a bottom-of-the-table affair with neither side having a realistic chance of qualifying for the final – might be the rough-hewn vestments of a country priest.

The shorter format has the cricket world in its grip as the year begins. Two games from the West Indies T20 competition were on offer on the telly earlier in the day. The first was Sussex v the Netherlands in Antigua. Only a decade ago such a contest in such a place would have seemed the stuff of fantasy. Later, there was a game from the Big Bash competition. Who knew that the Australians could do onomatopoeia?

Before the game began the teams lined up for a minute's silence in memory of the eleven victims of the ballooning accident that took place last weekend 40 miles or so from Wellington. The home players wore black armbands. With our small population, tragedies of this kind are more deeply felt in New Zealand than they are in more populous countries. But these memorial moments at sports fixtures now happen so often that they are in danger of becoming mere tokenism (“who is it today then?” I have heard people say as we rise to make solemn observance). The Australians, it sometimes appears, rarely take the field these days without their armbands. It cannot be long before the marketing people bring their characteristic soullessness to this, mark my words: “Granny dead?The Woolongong Wombats have a space on their armband for her and, in return for a large sum, will stand around looking non-specifically sad for several seconds before play (unless it rains in which case Duckworth-Lewis applies)”.

Northern Districts won the toss and chose to bat. Kane Williamson opened and anchored the innings with 53 from 41 balls. He continues to look a class above almost everybody else at this level. When he was out the innings lost momentum. Scott Styris scored 23 without looking convincing. He was dropped off a towering top edge, wicket keeper Brendon Taylor waiting under it for an age before the Wellington wind made a fool of him, as it will. He barely touched it. Andy McKay was outstanding with one for 16.

The last over started with Northern Districts on 138. Wellington appeared to have every chance of restricting the total to below 150, which would leave the home team in the box seat. Vettori (hirsuiteness update: short hair, big beard, a look of the ayatollah about him) took a single from the first ball leaving Peter McGlashan to face Mark Gillespie. My mind went back to a 50-over game three years ago when the same combination faced each other at the climax. McGlashan then needed nine from the last two balls for a one-wicket win. He dealt with the matter straightforwardly by twice hitting Gillespie past the scoreboard and out of the ground for wind-assisted sixes. Today it seemed that McGlashan had remembered those events while Gillespie had forgotten. The second ball of the over was lifted onto the roof of the JR Reid Gate, the third clearing the boundary squarer. A third successive six enabled McGlashan to demonstrate that he is New Zealand's most proficient reverse hitter, as he pulled the ball over the cover boundary. A four in the same manner with a single to finish took Northern Districts to a formidable 162.

Three wickets fell in the first four overs of the reply, and that was more or less it. One of T20's main weaknesses is that there is no coming back from a bad start. Rory Hamilton-Brown, the Surrey captain brought in for the second half of the T20 competition in the manner of a pilot coming on board the Titanic just as it hits the iceberg, hung around for seven overs as opener, but scored only seven runs, a Boycottian rate of progress in this context.

The whole Northern Districts attack was proficient, with Vettori applying a mid-innings strangle as Derek Underwood used to do of a Sunday afternoon, and Tim Southee outstanding. The wonder is how a side so full of talent could find itself superior to Wellington only on run rate at the start of the game. Another of T20's issues is that it is too great a leveller.

It will be a month before I can watch more live cricket, but then it will be the South Africans, in town in all three forms, so it will be worth the wait.