The End of the New Zealand Season

New Zealand v Bangladesh, third ODI (of three), Basin Reserve, 26 March 2021

Wellington v Northern Districts, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 27–30 March 2021

The Bangladeshis have been here, the sixth and final international opponents to visit New Zealand this season (including the English and Australian women). To the pleasure of the capital’s cricket fans, their visit here was to the Basin Reserve rather than the Cake Tin. It was only the fourth ODI at the Basin since I moved to Wellington in 2006. The authorities are reluctant to shift short-form fixtures away from the stadium, perhaps because it would be tacit acceptance that the multi-sport concept behind it was flawed. Usually, it occurs only when there is a clash of events, but this time it seems to have been accepted that the crowd likely to be attracted to the fixture would look lost at the bigger venue. 

Bangladesh have a 100% loss record for international matches in New Zealand, and had maintained that in the first two games in the three-match ODI series. But we in Wellington look forward to their visits, as we so enjoyed the test match here in 2017, which had some brilliant cricket and a finish in the final session of the fifth day.

Regular readers will know that recent Basin Reserve pitches have varied wildly in their character. Early on in the new Zealand innings the difficulty that batsmen had in timing the ball suggested that this one was towards the bowler-friendly end of the spectrum. 

New Zealand won the toss and batted. Henry Nicholls, heaving like a ship in a typhoon, was dropped off a diving chance to keeper Mushfiqur Rahim, only to be caught in the gully two balls later. Something similar happened to Ross Taylor, first dropped, then caught, this time by the keeper, at the end of the same over. Rarely for him, Taylor is going through a bit of a dip in form. Is this age casting its long shadow? He wants to go through to the next 50-over World Cup, and has the botox of class with which to ward off the calendar’s attack. In the meantime, he has been impressive in the commentary box during the T20s.

Guptill and Latham, both in good form, were also out to mistimed shots, which made it hard to judge what an adequate score would be. At 120 for four from 23 overs it could have gone either way; that the final total was as high as 318 was down to an innings of some brilliance by Devon Conway.

Since he came to Wellington from South Africa in 2017, these columns have brought to readers’ attention his international class. This has required no special insight nor superior analytical ability; the weight of runs he has scored are evidence enough. Here, there were shots off the back foot and the front foot, on the offside and the legside, played with a precision of placement that made boundary fielders look as if they had weights strapped to their legs. 

My favourite shot was the straight drive he played early on…or maybe the late cut in his 40s between two fielders so close they might have danced…or perhaps the successive drives through the offside after he had reached his century…or even one of the other of the 17 boundaries he hit, each of which might have been hallmarked.

Conway has not yet played test cricket, but must do so in England. There has been some debate about where he will fit in. The middle order of Williamson, Taylor, Nicholls and Watling, followed by an all-rounder, is well-established. As a practised No 3, opener seems the best option for him, which would be tough on Tom Blundell, who averages just under 40 from ten tests, most of them at the top of the order, but it is a characteristic of a successful team that what was once good enough becomes no longer so. What is clear is that Devon Conway is too good to leave out. On both his entry and exit from the field Conway was hailed like the local hero he has become.

Conway was well-supported by Daryl Mitchell in a partnership of 159. Mitchell was 83 at the start of the fiftieth over, a century improbable, but three fours off Mustafizur’s first three balls, the last a no-ball, brought it within reach. A two and a single moved Mitchell to 98, but left him at the non-striker’s end with two balls left. It looked as if Santner had found the cover boundary with the next, but never has a home batsmen being denied a four been more warmly received; they ran three to give Mitchell one chance. A better throw would have run him out, but he scrambled the second and reached his maiden international hundred, the 21 accrued from the over apparently putting the total beyond Bangladesh’s aspirations. Only towards the end of the reply, when Mahmud Ulluh started hitting out, was a serious attempt made to score at the required rate, but it was far too late. New Zealand won by 164 runs.

The following day a select spectating elite returned to the Basin for the final home Plunket Shield fixture, against Northern Districts. As usual, the severe green of the pitch suggested that the groundsman had been under the impression that he was preparing a surface for snooker rather than cricket. It has been some time since a toss-winning captain chose to bat first here in a first-class game, and Northern Districts’ skipper Joe Carter was not going to buck the trend. But, as is usual these days, the pitch was like a fierce-looking guard dog that, upon being offered a chocolate, rolls over to have its tummy rubbed.

Anybody entering the ground during the 15th over with Wellington 40 without loss would have thought that they missed nothing the least bit out of the ordinary. Yet I have never seen anything like it before in the first hour of a first-class game. 

Twenty-four of those runs came in sixes, all pulls by Rachin Ravindra. I have written about 21-year-old Ravindra’s rich promise before. This was his first game for a couple of months after sustaining a shoulder injury in the T20, so peppering the bank was just working his way of working himself back in. The shots, perfectly executed, were impressive enough, but the best thing was that these were the only attacking shots he attempted in that first hour. Great shot selection, technical excellence, the audacity to go through with them and the mental discipline not to get carried away and try it too often all wrapped up in one young opener. 

None of the sixes came off Neil Wagner. An odd fact about contemporary New Zealand cricket is that Wagner has never played for the national team in either of the shorter forms, which is why he was able to be in the Northern Districts line-up here. One can understand why, sort of. He functions only when set to “attack” and asking him to throttle back to the containing mode required in the limited-overs game would be like recruiting Genghis Khan for a UN peacekeeping mission. 

Here, at first it appeared that Wagner had signed up with Bouncers Anonymous as, unusually, he forsook his natural length, located close to his toecaps, for the uncharted waters in the third of the pitch nearest to the batsman. There were signs that he was about to fall off the wagon—a fielder sent three-quarters of the way to the square-leg boundary—but not until the twelfth over did he go round the wicket to take his seat at the short-pitched bar. Even then, it was only to Georgeson; there was no greater compliment to Ravindra than Wagner’s reluctance to give him further opportunities to smite sixes.

Towards the end of the day Wagner struck Troy Johnson on the pad. The appeal was a theatrical masterpiece, so perfectly constructed as a three-act drama that halfway through I instinctively looked for an usherette from whom to buy a vanilla tub. 

He drew on some of the finest dramatic oeuvres, starting with the great tragic actors. Then a pirouette and a backwards progress down the pitch en pointe brought to mind Nureyev as Romeo, before a finale on one knee, arms spread wide in beseechment was Al Jolson reincarnate. All of us would have walked a million miles for one of Wagner’s smiles except the umpire, who ruled it not out.  

The context for Wagner’s performance here was a dead game (the Plunket Shield having been sealed by Canterbury before it began), and he was certain of his place for the forthcoming tour to England, so had nothing to prove. Yet his analysis for the innings was 24-7-34-1. He could not have tried harder. Neil Wagner is the most estimable of cricketers. 

Ravindra joins Wagner in the tour party. He went on to 138, first out with the score on 226. Blundell also made a hundred. Long-term, his international future may be as BJ Watling’s successor as keeper. Northern Districts had reached 97 for four in reply to Wellington’s 414 for four declared at the end of the second day, only rain to wash away the final two days.

So ended the New Zealand season. It has been a good one. The fixture list worked well for me, enabling me to see more Plunket Shield and domestic 50-over cricket than I have for a few years. There was a good test match, and I enjoyed the T20 competition more than before, especially the women. That, I think, was down to an appreciation that simply being at the cricket was a privilege in our world.

My mother, who more than half a century ago was so willing to foster a young boy’s unexpected fascination with cricket, was one of those taken by Covid as the Kent variation ravaged the county, three days after my aunt succumbed to it. It will be some time before I’m next at St Lawrence (if ever, I sometimes think) so it has been a real treat, this week, to watch county cricket on YouTube. The sight of Darren Stevens sauntering in with the new ball proved that the world is not turned completely upside down. 

I hope that those whose reports and reflections on county cricket and its players I so enjoy, and anybody else who knows the pleasure of a day at the cricket, have the sun shine on them this English summer.

Peaceful days in the sun: New Zealand v England in Hamilton

New Zealand v England, second test, Seddon Park in Hamilton, 29 November to 3 December 2019

Scorecard

Restful. That is how I would characterise my three days at the Hamilton test. There was plenty to enjoy, even though the action was not frenetic (apart from when Neil Wagner was bowling, obviously), and it was good to be back at Seddon Park, which was where I watched test cricket for the first half-decade or so of the new century.

There was plenty to remember, starting with Campbell and Griffiths putting on 276 for the West Indian first wicket, only for their team to lose. That was largely thanks to Chris Cairns, who has been airbrushed out of New Zealand’s cricket history since the lawyers got interested, but was a terrific cricketer.

The following year Australia were reduced to 29 for five, a situation that Adam Gilchrist dealt with by batting as if they were 400 for one. Australia won by six wickets.

There was the two-day test against India beginning on Friday afternoon and won by New Zealand soon after lunch on Sunday on a pitch that looked as if it had been transplanted from the centre court at Wimbledon. I always think of that match whenever I hear people moaning about the Indians and their home-team groundsmen.

Then the crater test against South Africa. A big hole appeared at one end, which the groundsman filled up, then, once he had been acquainted with the rules, emptied again. It was too far outside the right handers’ leg stump to be a threat, and when the ball did land there was as likely to scoot off the other way, but it had a mesmeric effect on the bowlers who wasted a couple of days aiming at it.

So the pitch as talking point is not a new thing for Seddon Park. The strip for this game was similar to that at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui for the series opener. That game finished in a New Zealand win well into the fifth afternoon, which is what a test pitch is supposed to facilitate. However, that the Hamilton pitch received an ICC rating of “good”, suggested that cricket needs a new dictionary for Christmas. It was easy for batsmen to stay in on unless they tried to score at more than two-and-a-little-bit an over, which is about as bad as a test-match pitch can be.

There was a historical curiosity about the scheduling of this game in Hamilton after that at the Mount, which is little more than an hour’s drive away. It can’t have happened often that successive tests have been staged on different grounds in the same province/county/state, Northern Districts in this case (though the profusion of venues in Colombo may have beaten ND to it). This was a precaution against New Zealand’s turbulent spring weather, and it paid off, with three balmy days, hot enough to trigger a storm that finished off the first day just after tea.

Hamilton’s new lights were shown off to good effect just before the rain fell. A switch was flicked and made a substantial and immediate difference, even though it wasn’t that dark. In the County Championship, the rule that that the artificial light cannot be stronger than the natural light would mean that their being switched on at all would mean that the players would have to come off there and then.

The previous lights had to come down because the towers were an earthquake risk, though shakes are mercifully rarer in the Waikato than in much of the country. I was CricInfo’s man in Northern Districts when they went up and turned down the chance to climb to the top of one of them.

It seems compulsory for the British cricketing press to preface the name of any New Zealand player other than Williamson, Taylor and Boult with “underrated”. BJ Watling might have been thought to have used up this year’s quota during his double hundred in the first test, but a new supply was rushed out in time for the underrated Tom Latham’s first-day hundred. Those who describe Latham thus have missed his presence in the top ten of the ICC batting rankings over the past year or more.

His batting in the first innings was the most fluent of the match. He scored faster than any specialist batsman on either side, but never appeared to hurry. Latham was helped by Broad’s wayward line in his opening spell. When he got one right it was to Jeet Raval, who edged to Root at first slip. It is so often the case that the man out of form gets the bowler’s best. Raval benefitted from New Zealand’s policy of picking a squad for both these two tests and the three to follow, but further failure in Perth has cost him his place in the Boxing Day test.

Root also caught Williamson, squared up by Woakes, but Ross Taylor became established and by mid-afternoon England looked dispirited, not helped by having two leg-before decisions overturned by the DRS. In just his second over Stokes resorted to three deep on the legside plus a fine third man to Taylor, who was out more conventionally from the ball after he reached his fifty, providing Root with his third catch of the day.

Latham reached his hundred shortly before the rain brought an early end to the first day. He was out early the next morning, leaving on length a Broad delivery that hit the top of off. He was replaced by the underrated Henry Nicholls, also hiding from the English media in plain sight in the top ten of the rankings.

Just when we had agreed that Sam Curran didn’t have the pace for test cricket, he succoured Nicholls into top edging a catch to deep fine leg. Next in was Daryl Mitchell, on test debut on his home ground. Mitchell was as close to a like-to-like replacement for the injured De Grandhomme as was available, which isn’t very close at all, De Grandhomme being more than the cube of his parts, let alone the sum. At 191 for five, England had restored the balance of the game, but Watling and Mitchell reclaimed it with a stand of 124.

It occupied a serene 53 overs. With the heat, the grass bank at the top end, and BJ Watling digging in, I may have dropped off for a few seconds and dreamt myself back at Mote Park in the late seventies, the great CJ Tavaré at the crease, sucking the will to live out of the opposition. Only the Tip Top ice cream signs where the Deal Beach Parlours van should have been returned me to the present.

Joe Root resorted to placing of fielders in odd positions, but it was too random to be convincing. His handling of the bowlers had a by-numbers feel to it, but with an attack consisting of four quicks and an all-rounder whose fitness was dodgy, that would be hard to avoid. It was strange that he put himself on with Latham on 96 and helped the batsman to his century with a friendly (as Jim Laker used to describe all full tosses) full toss.

Mitchell upped such tempo as there was and played well for 73 before going the same way as Nicholls, but off the bowling of Broad, who had got Watling four overs earlier with another short one that went of the shoulder of the bat to Burns in the gully. Late-order merriment took New Zealand to 375.

England had addressed their three-keeper problem by picking a fourth, Ollie Pope, in for the injured Buttler. He was athletic, which with no frontline spinner in the XI was all he needed to be, but he lacks the quality most prized in modern keepers—he doesn’t jabber on incessantly in praise of half volleys.

Jofra Archer had a dispiriting time from which he will learn, but is a fine sight. Anyone who grew up in the era of Willis, Holding and JSE Price finds it hard to understand that a bowler can call himself fast without a run up that embraces two time zones, but with Archer and Bumrah as models, the next generation will strive for brevity.

England lost two before the close of the second day. Writers better qualified in technical analysis than me have written off Dominic Sibley as a test player on the basis that he appears to abstain from the offside as if batting in a permanent Lent. I hope that he proves them wrong, if only to show that runs in county cricket are not irrelevant. Here, it was a relief to all concerned when Southee got him lbw for four.

This was the seventh New Zealand v England test at which I have been present since moving here, but the first time a Kent player has been in the England team. Here there were two, Joe Denly and Zak Crawley.  Denly may yet become the David Steele of our time, a middle-aged hero of the Resistance. Not here though. At least there was a Kentish dimension to the dismissal, caught behind for four off Matt Henry. Denly did achieve something memorable in Hamilton: late in the game he infamously dropped a Sun crossword clue of a chance offered by Williamson. I so hope that is not what he is remembered for when his test career is done.

England finished the day on an uncomfortable 39 for two, though it would have been worse had Rory Burns not been dropped twice, the easier chance to Taylor, the harder to Raval.

My notes for the third morning consist only of the following:

“Root and Burns in no trouble for the first half of the morning”. Then, an hour or so later, “Nor the second half”. Some stories are easily told.

Root was not at his best, or particularly close to it, but that he had to work at it more than he usually appears to made it all the more praiseworthy.

Burns survived another chance on 86 when Henry butchered a run out by trying and failing to intercept a throw that Latham was perfectly placed to collect beside the stumps. He reached his hundred in mid-afternoon. Steve James, in his The Art of Centuries, explained that there is a challenge to overcome for a batsman who survives a chance or chances; he has to convince himself that he retains the right to be there. To say that a batsman is gritty has an air of damning by faint praise about it, but that should not be so, especially for an opener. Burns has that quality and should have a good run at the top of England’s order. He has also shown (see comments re Sibley, above) that runs in county cricket do mean something.

Burns was run out the ball after he achieved three figures, but it took an age to confirm, the problem being to establish that there was separation of bail and stump before Burns had made his ground, though this appeared obvious enough on the big screen. Perhaps the ICC could spare some of its largesse to provide stumps that light up for all tests, and agree that illumination equals separation.

New Zealand’s attritional bowling and field settings meant that Ben Stokes never got going before he fell to a slip catch from a Southee delivery that was one of the few to move laterally.

This brought in Zak Crawley for his debut innings. This was only the second occasion on which I have been present to watch a Kent player at the crease for the first time in a test match. The other was at the very first day’s test cricket I attended, England v New Zealand at the Oval in 1969. Then it was Mike Denness who batted with agonising uncertainty for a 43-ball two. This time it was briefer, but no better.

Crawley was anxious to impose himself and get off the mark. He drove his fourth delivery hard, but Henry at mid on made a sharp stop to prevent the run. This wound Crawley up a little tighter and though he hit the next ball straight to Williamson, he set off for the run as if drawn by an irresistible law of physics. He needed every bit of his diving 6’5” to beat the direct hit.

He edged the second delivery of Wagner’s next over to Watling, so Crawley’s hard-won single will constitute his test record until the next time, perhaps after his domestic record has been fortified with more consistent scoring so as to match achievement with his undoubted promise.

Crawley was on of Wagner’s five wickets. As ever he bowled with such energy and fire as to raise the question of how much more Sisyphus might have achieved had he shown Wagner’s spirit.

I left for the airport soon after Crawley’s dismissal, just before more rain ended the day an hour or so prematurely. Though two days remained, a forecast of rain for much of the last day combined with the torpor of the pitch to make a draw appear all but certain. Centuries from Williamson and Taylor confirmed the result, giving New Zealand the series win, with the usual rider that two games do not a series make.