The Plunket Shield begins

Wellington v Auckland, Basin Reserve, 11-14 November 2024

In common with the County Championship in Britain and the Sheffield Shield in Australia, the Plunket Shield bookends the season in New Zealand, four rounds before the shorter forms take over at the height of summer, four more as the leaves turn from green to brown. The difference between my experience at St Lawrence in April and the Basin Reserve in November was about 15 degrees celsius. It was most pleasant in the RA Vance, at least until mid-afternoon when the southerly turned up. I was there only for the first day of the opener between Wellington and Auckland.

The first thing we noticed was the sightscreens, installed at considerable cost, both financial and in terms of the view of play from the Royal Box. That at the southern end was out of action, replaced by something closely resembling an Imax screen, spread out over the grass bank. The screen at the northern end remained functional, though the white sheets attached to the framework flapped about as if they were washing hung on a line. They had not survived 130kph winds a few days before. It had not been thought worth checking the resilience of the screens in these conditions, presumably on the grounds that in Wellington they occur no more than three times a week. 

In preparation for the forthcoming series against England, Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra and Tom Blundell all made rare appearances in the Wellington XI. All three might have been with the national white-ball team in Sri Lanka, but it was good to see priority given to their well-being and readiness for test cricket. Tim Robinson and Nathan Smith were on international duty in Asia. 

When I arrived, about 40 minutes in, Auckland were 26 for four. It might have been assumed that this was the consequence of an early-season greentop, but Auckland chose to bat after winning the toss on a pitch that was closer to grapefruit than lime in colour. There was a bit of movement, particularly before lunch, but nothing that approached impropriety for a first-day strip. There was extra bounce too, and that accounted for Cam Fletcher in particular. 

At 66 for seven we were reminded of the corresponding opening fixture seven years ago when Auckland were dismissed for 62, Wellington finishing the first day on 246 without loss. An eighth-wicket partnership of 87 between Jacobs and Ashok set aside the possibility of such a catastrophe for the visitors being repeated.

Bevon-John Jacobs is known as BJ, like Watling of that ilk. In common with the former Black Caps wicketkeeper he is South African by birth and a New Zealander by cricketing upbringing. Jacobs was making his first-class debut here, having appeared a few times in the shorter forms for Canterbury. His 75 came in 100 balls, and 58 came in boundaries, including three sixes, with hitting that was clean and judicious. 

For the 46th over, van Beek switched to the northern end, removed the close catchers, spread the fielders* around the boundary and started to dig them in. I was well into a homily on the subject of how foolish this was, and how nobody striking the ball as well as Jacobs could possibly fall for it when he hit the fourth ball of the over straight to deep mid-wicket. Any actor auditioning for the part of Othello and wanting to brush up on the portrayal of remorse would do well to study the video of Jacobs leaving the field at this point. Nevertheless, his innings gave Auckland a veneer of respectability that looked unlikely when he came in. They finished with 184.

Buoyed by our returning internationals, we anticipated a sizeable first-innings lead. What we got was an advantage of 86, to which the three returning heroes contributed 49 between them. Devon Conway chipped in with 36, but the fact that he was sixth out tells you much about the general progress of the innings. 

Conway batted much as he had in India: not looking in great touch, but scoring runs nevertheless. That is one measure of a good batter, I suppose. Rachin Ravindra was largely responsible for New Zealand’s victory in the first test in India, but lost form as the series went on. Here, he was leg before for seven. He left the field pointedly examining the edge of his bat like Thomas Chippendale handling a particularly fine chair leg, but if he had not played across the line it would have been the middle rather than the exterior that connected with the ball, and the question would not have arisen. It was seven more than he managed in the second innings. 

Blundell got six before getting an inside edge to an outswinger, the geometry of which suggests a player a distance from peak form. Some question his place in the test team after a poor time with the bat in south Asia, but his keeping remains proficient and he deserves the England series in home conditions. At the close of the first day, Wellington were 58 in arrears with four wickets left. 

Logan van Beek, with five for 53, was the main reason for Auckland’s low score, and on the second day became the driver of Wellington’s first-innings lead. Overnight, he was unbeaten on 37 from 32 balls, a fairly standard rate of van Beekian progress. In the morning, he was altogether calmer, requiring a further 126 deliveries to reach his century. He put on123 for the eighth wicket with Peter Younghusband. 

Van Beek is a cricketer who makes things happen, one way or the other. He is, I think, the only cricketer to both score and concede 30 or more in an over across first-class, List A and T20 cricket. He plays international cricket for the Netherlands so is currently unavailable to the New Zealand selectors, who would otherwise have him on their radar. This innings demonstrated a pleasing capacity for circumspection. 

The rest I will gloss over as I was not there, but Basin Reserve regulars who were present would want to do the same, given that Wellington blew their advantage to lose by 54 runs. When Auckland were seven down with the lead just 93, it seemed that the points were in the bag, but it was BJ Jacobs who turned things around with his second 70 of the game, though he had been infected with some of van Beek’s caution, as it took him 50 more deliveries than the first one. A name to watch. 

Even so, 232 should have been attainable, but Blundell’s 63 apart, Conway’s 28 was the highest score of the innings. I watched the end of the game on the YouTube feed. Seconds after Blundell left the field ninth out, the microphone on the solitary camera situated right next to the dressing rooms picked up a loud curse followed by one of summer’s most evocative sounds, that of willow on plaster. 

*It occurs to me that “fielder” has gradually taken the place of “fieldsman” in cricket’s vocabulary without any of the faux outrage that surrounds the emergence of “batter”. I have “batter” in my style guide partly because I write about women’s and men’s cricket and like to use the same language about both, but mostly because it annoys disproportionately precisely those who most deserve to be annoyed. I would take their protests more seriously if I had ever heard anybody object to the gender-neutral “bowler”, which I have not, even once, in six decades. 

Williamson and Nicholls Shine at the Basin

 New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Second Test, Basin Reserve, 17-20 March 2023

Scorecard

This was the 2,500th test match since it all began in Melbourne 146 years ago, and in New Zealand, at least, the format has never been so vibrant or appealing.

The most remarkable match that any of us have seen was followed just two weeks later in Christchurch by only the second occasion on which test-match victory was obtained off the last possible ball, as Kane Williamson hurled himself ahead of the throw to record the most valuable bye in cricket history.

When Ian Smith tailored his bespoke “by the barest of margins” description of the end of the Game of Which We Do Not Care to Speak in 2019, he could not have imagined that it would become an off-the-peg expression for use at home in the following few years.

Domestic cricket has been infected by the tension trend; Wellington’s games with Northern Districts this season have been won by one wicket and lost by two runs. Has any other ground staged games with one-wicket and one-run margins in the same season?

This test match was not a classic, but it contained much good cricket, almost all of it played by the home team. It was, even more than most cricket matches, full of statistical oddities. One of these was that it was first time since 1996 that New Zealand had selected a team with no left-armer as part of the attack. Dan Vettori, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner are the three main reasons for the sustained period of ambidextrousness and it was the latter's absence that ended it. Just as he was at the Basin against England, Wagner was crucially involved at the end of the Christchurch game, where he ignored injuries that would have put most of us in a wheelchair to complete the winning bye. He says that his test career is not over, and we all hope that he is right.

Doug Bracewell, cousin of Michael, son of Brendon, nephew of John, replaced Wagner, his first test appearance since 2016. There are a number of reasons for the long sabbatical, one being the unprecedented strength of New Zealand’s pace bowling in this period, another a run of injuries, some sustained in the early hours. A deceased cockatoo was also complicit.

Bracewell D also became the sixth player in the team with a double L in his name, but this may be mining the seam of statistical obscurity a little too deep.

The Basin Reserve pitch has sometimes been described in these columns as an early celebration of St Patrick’s Day, so, with the test match starting on that day, it was no surprise that something with the hue of an algae-covered pond was revealed when the covers were removed. We should all have learned by now that green pitches in New Zealand are fierce-looking dogs that roll over to have their tummies rubbed at the first opportunity. Sri Lanka learned this the hard way. An attack that had looked capable in Christchurch appeared to take the view that winning the toss had handed them a fistful of chips that could be cashed in simply by turning their arms over; in fact, great precision was required to extract any help that the pitch held within it.

Rajitha and Fernando were erratic in length; Kumara was more consistent, but only inasmuch as he was always far too short. There was also the wind, which Devon Conway described as the strongest he had experienced in his six years at the Basin. The quicker bowlers from the southern end will have felt as if they were marking time as they ran in, while for the spinners controlling flight was akin to taming an eagle. Later in the match Michael Bracewell tossed one up only for the gale to take it from its line on the stumps past the return crease for a wide.

Neither of New Zealand’s openers could blame the pitch for their fall. Tom Latham, on 21, pulled a catch straight to the only deep fielder.

Conway was in top form, his driving through the offside a thing of beauty, accounting for a good proportion of the 13 fours that contributed to his 78. Just when he looked booked in for a big score, Conway came down the pitch to off spinner Dhananjaya de Silva, but didn’t quite get there. The bowler took an athletic return catch.

Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls were now together. At the start of the test season there was criticism of Williamson with foolish phrases such as “if he can be bothered to turn up” bandied about. Now free of the elbow injury that weighed him down for a while, he has produced scores of 132, 121 and, here, 215 in successive test matches, each of which were the foundation of a New Zealand victory. His average in winning test matches is higher than any except Bradman’s (which is almost 50 higher, of course). Already New Zealand’s leading test runscorer, Williamson passed 8,000 runs at the Basin.

Conversation turned to whether he, or Martin Crowe, is our greatest batsman (acknowledging that Bert Sutcliffe and Martin Donnelly both have their advocates). Crowe, for all his technical correctness, was part nature and part art, while Williamson is more science and engineering. Let us not forget that engineers also produce things of beauty, as Williamson did here, playing with the ease and smoothness of Sinatra crooning a classic. 

Henry Nicholls is not the Last Chance Saloon’s best customer. That must be Zak Crawley. But he has been there so often that they know his tipple  and have it waiting for him as he walks through the door. With Young and Phillips both challenging his place, Nicholls joined Williamson aware that he had to produce something notable to ensure that this was not his last test match.

He was dropped by debutant keeper Madushka on six, a chance similar to the critical miss of Williamson in Christchurch that brought about Dickwella’s exclusion here. Nicholls was also dropped on 92, a return catch to Jayasuriya, but had already restored his reputation by then. Dropped chances are outside a batter’s control, but they are a test of resilience under the sort of pressure that Nicholls found himself, and he passed emphatically. He was harsh on the short bowling that Sri Lanka persisted with, and accelerated as New Zealand pushed towards a declaration. He reached 200 from 240 balls, the first time that two New Zealanders had made double hundreds in the same innings. 

The third-wicket partnership was worth 363, two fewer than Williamson’s world-record sixth wicket stand with BJ Watling against the same opponents at the Basin in 2015, and 11 more than the one they beat: Watling and McCullum’s against India here the previous year. The New Zealand record for the third wicket remains 467 by Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones, again against Sri Lanka at the Basin, in 1991. 

That was the world record until surpassed by Sangakkara and Jayawardene’ 624 against South Africa in 2006. How Sri Lanka could have done with those two great players now. Even so, with Karunaratne, Mathews and Chandimal all with test averages around or above 40, we expected getting them out for under the follow on of 381 would be tricky.

Two wickets were lost in the 17 overs left on the second day after the declaration. Matt Henry showed how the new ball was best used on this pitch with a probing line and length to induce an edge from Fernando, then Conway took a spectacular catch at point to dismiss Mendis, Doug Bracewell’s first test wicket for six years.

The first session of the third day saw two quick wickets rewarding proficient opening spells from Southee and Henry, though Mathews could have left the one that he edged to Blundell. For the rest of the morning Karunaratne and de Silva demonstrated that serenity could arise from the application of a little technique and patience, and there seemed no reason why Sri Lanka should not work steadily towards at least batting for long enough to make the enforcement of the follow on out of the question.

But the common sense that had characterised the morning was swept away with the lunchtime leftovers, starting with Chandimal giving Michael Bracewell the charge, and Blundell an easy stumping, In Bracewell’s next over, de Silva also ventured down the pitch only to chip an easy catch to Southee close in at mid wicket. The inevitable foolish run out was added to the mix, a desperate Karunaratne holed out at long on as he ran out of partners and soon enough Sri Lanka had lost their last six wickets for 65 since lunch. 

Michael Bracewell became, somewhat improbably for one who was only an occasional bowler three years ago, the first New Zealand spinner to take three wickets in the first innings of a home test since Bruce Martin took four in successive games against England in 2013.

With a six-man attack, the first innings done in 67 overs and rain predicted for the fifth day, Tim Southee enforced the follow on. Had Sri Lanka’s second innings been their first, they might well have come out with a draw. The control and discipline, which had been largely absent apart from the Karunaratne/Chandimal partnership,now spread across the order.

It was too late for there to be tension, however, particularly after the forecast improved and a fifth day was guaranteed. For the spectators the rest of the game was like watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies that are put together just over the hill from the Basin. We knew how it would end, but it took an interminable time to do so. 

Again, two wickets fell before the close. Fernando flicked a loose catch to square leg. Karunaratne reached his second half century of the day before becoming the first of five successive Sri Lankans to fall for the fatal allure of the short-pitched delivery, Conway taking a very good catch on the square legside boundary as it came to him out of the sun. 

Mendis and Mathews both went tamely in the first quarter of an hour of day four, and we started making plans for an afternoon at leisure. However, Chandimal (again) and de Silva batted with excellent judgement and considerable flair before the former top edged to fine leg just before lunch. 

Madushka was resolute in a sixth-wicket partnership of 76, and appeared to have shepherded his partner to a deserved century, but de Silva, two short of a tenth test hundred, toe-ended a lap-sweep to give short leg an easy catch. He was bereft, but got a standing ovation anyway. Crowds are generous when they know that a win is in the bag. 

The last three wickets resisted for an admirable yet irritating 35 overs, showing grit and technique. The short ball had worked well for New Zealand, but a few more at the stumps in this period might have hastened the end as the Sri Lankan tail was better at the leave than their brethren higher up the order. 

If Tim Southee is to remain New Zealand’s captain, the ICC will have to consider including Google Earth into the DRS system to ensure that the ball is in the same picture as the bat. He blew his reviews on some notable non-events, the worst of which was for a caught behind that the unsighted leg slip appealed for, supported by neither the bowler nor the keeper. He is one for 23 in terms of successful appeals. 

There was also the wind, which freshened to the extent of the camera operators having to abandon their positions on the scaffolding at the southern end of the ground, returning us to 1970s one-end coverage. I half-expected Jim Laker’s voice on the highlights, telling us what a thrillin’ innin’s we were watching. 

Two slip catches completed the game as we went into the extra eight overs. New Zealand have now gone six years without losing a home series, and recent performances against Pakistan, England and Sri Lanka have restored our faith to some extent.

That concludes my cricket season 2022-23. A great test match and a good one will be treasured in the memory. I hope that the fixture list offers more opportunities to watch for domestic first-class and 50-over matches next season, when we have Australia and South Africa visiting for test matches.  

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.

Summer days at the T20

The first-class season in New Zealand used to begin at Christmas, sometimes on Christmas Day itself, which must have been the cause of tense negotiations in households across the country. Now the tinsel and reindeer bring with them the start of the domestic T20. I watched the opener at the Basin Reserve on Christmas Eve on television, and was at the ground for the remaining four home rounds of the round robin, and for the finals. 

One of the problems with T20 is that it does not offer a whole day at the cricket. There is barely time to put away a third scotch egg before stumps are pulled and you’re back on the bus. New Zealand Cricket have put this right by staging the domestic T20 as double headers, with a women’s and men’s game together offering a full day’s play, or at least the overs equivalent of a Sunday League game. 

In those distant times they managed to get through 80 overs in well under five hours of playing time rather than the six-plus it now takes. The biggest reason for this is that captains find it as irresistible to pick at their fields as does an infant its nose, often preceded by a conference that starts with the agreement of the minutes to the last one. So what about—either as an imposition once the over-rate falls below a proscribed level, or as standard practice—saying that the field set at the start of an over stays in place for the whole over, unless a left-hander replaces a right-hander on strike (or vice versa)? A harsher variant might be that captains submit a standard field at the start of the game and have to revert to that if they don’t get on with it. 

Both Wellington teams started the competition as reigning champions. The men have gone from strength-to-strength, and this year lost only away to Canterbury during the ten-game preliminary stage. Wellington supporters are doing a reasonable impression of the meek on the day when the title deeds to the Earth finally drop through the letter box. The women have experienced a levelling-up in the standard of competition. Last year they were unbeaten; this, they finished only third in the group stage and hosted the final because TV wanted it on the same ground as the men’s rather than on merit. 

Sophie Devine missed the early games but was devastating when she returned, starting with 108 from 38 balls in a total of 131 in a ten-wicket win away to Otago, followed by 59 off 26 in Christchurch. Her first appearance at the Basin, in the return against Otago, she made 80 from 44 and put on 110 for the second wicket with Melie Kerr. 

A young boy of about nine years of age who, when asked by a TV reporter if Finn Allen (see later) should be in the Black Caps squad replied that he judged Allen “not better than Sophie Devine, but still pretty good”, the quote of the season so far. It reflected not only the growing profile of women’s cricket here, but also how fortunate we are here in New Zealand, in these alarming times, to be so short of material to fill the news hour that we resort to seeking the opinions of primary schoolkids on the selection of national sports teams. 

Wellington’s women are the best fielding side in the competition, but when a Wellington player made a fielding error in a televised game, one of commentators said that the fielding was “not what you expect from a professional”. The excellent Frankie Mackay reminded him that there were only two professionals—Kerr and Devine—in the team. 

Mackay—also captain of Canterbury—is a prime example of a general truth that when a woman commentator comes to the microphone the average IQ in the commentary box increases significantly. This is never more true than on the Fox Sports coverage in Australia, which rarely rises above the level of tiresome banter other than when Isa Guha is there to guide and coax the boys into saying something intelligent about the cricket. Mackay is a librarian. When asked how many books she had read in 2020 she replied that it had been a busy year, so the total was a below-average 70. The incredulous response of her co-commentator suggested that he didn’t know that there were that many books in the world.

The aforementioned Finn Allen moved to Wellington from Auckland last year. In the early-season Plunket Shield games he could hardly put bat to ball and was dropped for the final match of the opening half of the programme. Restored for the shorter forms, he scored more runs than anybody else in the T20 competition (512), at the third-highest strike rate, with most fours and sixes. If he gets beyond single figures his innings explodes like a violation of the Test Ban Treaty. He combines timing and power in a way that is often spectacular. Alex Hales or Jason Roy might be playalikes in England. 

Against Central Districts, chasing 164, he reached his fifty in just 16 balls. This was the quickest half century I had seen since Matthew Fleming got one from the same number in a Sunday League game reduced by rain to ten overs for Kent against Yorkshire at Canterbury in 1996. Hearing that the game was soon to start, I hurried to the ground with my son, then aged eight. He was impressed. A couple of weeks later, we watched on TV as Sachin Tendulkar made an elegant century in a test match. He reached fifty in a little over a run-a-ball. “That’s four times slower than Matthew Fleming” said the boy, lifting the bar too high in a trice for any of the game’s subsequent great players to clear.

The second-highest T20 aggregate was Devon Conway’s, and his opening partnership with Allen goes much of the way towards accounting for Wellington’s success. One uses the power of a jack hammer, the other the finesse of the dentist’s drill. Conway has already been successful in the national T20 team, and would have walked straight into the test team in any other era. Expect to see him there in England in June.

The only loss that Wellington experienced in the home preliminaries was that of the women to Canterbury, thanks to the batting of Amy Satterthwaite, whose unbeaten 71 took the South Islanders to a nine-wicket win. Satterthwaite is Devine’s only contender as New Zealand’s best woman batter. The comparison is like that between the power and forcefulness of Graham Gooch and the elegance and security of Graham Thorpe. Like Thorpe, Satterthwaite is a left-hander, a rare thing among women cricketers here. Why this should be, and why there are more left-handers in the men’s game than there used to be, is a puzzle. Something to do with how they are coached when very young, perhaps. 

So to the finals, with Canterbury the visitors for both games. The women’s match was very entertaining. Three times, Wellington looked well on the way to victory, only for the game to turn on them. The first was when they were 100 for one, with Devine still there, slightly subdued but ready to press on the pedal for the final six overs of the innings until she was bowled by Melissa Banks, the first of seven wickets to fall for just 25 runs.

Satterthwaite’s loopy off spin accounted for three of the wickets, with three more falling to run outs, the best of which was a direct hit by eagle-eye Mackay. But that was the sum of Satterthwaite’s contribution; she was second out, for a duck. Melie Kerr’s hattrick, as previously reported, then reduced Canterbury to 40 for five, which became 60 for six with seven-and-a-half overs left.

Lea Tahuhu joined Kate Ebrahim. From that point, only four deliveries were not scored from. The shot selection of both players was exceptional, Ebrahim working the ball around while Tahuhu supplied the power, with two sixes off Jess Kerr in the 17th over. Six came from the next over, so 19 were needed from the last two. 

Only singles from the first three balls of the 19th, bowled by Devine. Wellington were back ahead, decisively we thought. But Ebrahim hit the next two deliveries to the boundary, one flicked to mid-wicket, the other lifted to the vacant third man. Ebrahim should have been run out off the last ball of that over, but Devine missed the stumps from four metres away. The Wellington fielding got a bit shaky as the game got more tense. Still, nine were needed from the last, bowled by Kasperek. 

Tahuhu charged the second ball of the over, sending it back over the bowler’s head to the straight boundary. Two more singles and the game was Canterbury’s, with two balls to spare. The rest of the Canterbury team rushed onto the field, first encircling Ebrahim. Satterthwaite broke away and rushed to Tahuhu, to whom she is married and with whom she had reversed roles today, batsman and bowler. Their embrace was as emotional a thing as I have seen on a cricket field for some time, sharpened by the appearance soon after of their one-year-old daughter. 

The men’s game was every bit as tense without quite as many giddy twists and turns. Canterbury batted first and for the first half of their innings made it look easy. At 106 for two in the twelfth, 200 looked probable. 

Wellington’s spinners, Bracewell and Younghusband (though slow bowler would be a truer representation of the former’s oeuvre), intervened decisively, gouging out Canterbury’s middle order and damming the flow of runs. Some end-of-innings biffing by Shipley took Canterbury to 175, fewer than they should have got, but still a challenge. There was some exceptional catching by Wellington. 

If Allen got going, it would be a cinch, but the tension of the final knocked his timing off, and he went for 16 off (by his standards) a dawdling ten deliveries. When Blundell was caught first ball by the diving Bowes at backward point, the tide of pessimism, never far from these shores, seemed about to engulf the local faithful. 

Devon Conway is one of those rare batsmen who goes about his job in the same way in all forms of cricket. The speed of scoring quickens to fit the format, but the foundation of judgement, temperament and, above all, technique is what his game is built on no matter what the context. 

As usual, it would have taken a while for the observer to discern what form of cricket was being played if the only evidence available to them was Conway’s batting. No chance of making runs was spurned and his risks were calculated, apparently to several decimal places. He paced his innings superbly, though he knew this better than most supporters when 29 were required from the last three overs, 15 from the final nine balls. 

Successive fours off the next two deliveries were executed as if they had been in Conway's diary for months. Another, his eleventh (just the one six today, more evidence of Conway's actuarial approach to batting) completed a five-wicket win with two balls to spare.

The Basin was fairly full for both finals, and, like last year, it was the family occasion that T20 competitions are said to enable, but, in some parts of the world, rarely do. T20’s limitations are well-known, but it can still provide a good day at the cricket, as it did here at a time when going to any cricket is a privilege.

Men’s final scorecard

Women’s final scorecard

 

Early Adventures in the Plunket Shield 2020

 Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 19—22 October 2020

Wellington v Otago, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 5—8 November 2020

Wellington v Auckland, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 14—17 November 2020

“I’m off to the cricket.”

There’s a phrase to quicken the pulse of the cricket enthusiast, especially when uttered for the first time in a new season. This time, it comes with a new sense of privilege and responsibility, for New Zealand is presently the only place in the world where fans can freely watch their first-class team on their home ground.

As I have walked through the gates of the Basin Reserve these last few weeks I have had a sense of being at the cricket on behalf of those who can’t be, particularly those who blog on going to the cricket in the UK, on whom I have come to rely for a vicarious experience of county cricket, but who are, for now, excluded from it themselves. I’m lucky. Covid-19 hasn’t cost me a day’s spectating, save for what I might have seen had a planned visit to the UK gone ahead.

Traditionally, the season opens at the Basin Reserve to the sound of jack hammers and buzzsaws, but the renovation of the Museum Stand, or Old Pavilion as it is now called, is complete, and a great adornment it is. We look forward to an updated New Zealand Cricket Museum being opened in the New Year, and, I hope, the return of the second-hand bookstall.

My first cricket of the new season was a brief after-work visit to the third day of the opening Plunket Shield fixture, with Canterbury the visitors. Photos of the first-day pitch attracted a good deal of attention on social media due to its being greener than David Attenborough. Wellington were duly skittled for 65.

The rest of the game consisted of expanding totals as the pitch made its journey from spring to early summer. My visit coincided with the end of Wellington’s second innings. Devon Conway was batting. Wellington are making the most of Conway while they can. Top scorer nationally in all three forms of domestic cricket last season, he qualified for New Zealand in August, and was in the national squad for the T20s against the West Indies. Here, he was top scorer in both innings, not enough to prevent a seven-wicket win for Canterbury.

Conway, and the other international players apart from those in the IPL, were available for their provinces for the first half of the Plunket Shield, in theory at least. But while we are free of Covid-19 in New Zealand another plague is rampant, that of the “slight strain”, to which these internationals appear especially vulnerable, and which keeps them in social isolation away from dressing rooms.

The uneven structure of the New Zealand domestic programme sent the two teams to Christchurch the following week for the return fixture. Canterbury won even more easily, the prospect of Wellington retaining the Plunket Shield heading for the hills with summer not yet begun.

Otago were the visitors for the next match, at the Basin. This was a rare opportunity to see a first-class game in its entirety (or so I thought). The pitch wasn’t quite as green as that against Canterbury, but neither is the Amazon Rain Forest, so Michael Bracewell still put Otago in upon winning the toss.

Wellington’s customary breeze was unusually warm, and offered the prospect of swing, which may have had a hand in the first wicket of the match, Kitchen playing on to a Newton delivery that came back at him. 

With four right-arm seamers, Bracewell, as Trevor Bailey used to say about England in the 80s, could change the bowler, but not the bowling. Hamish Bennett has led the Wellington attack with distinction for the past few years, and in any other era but the pace-rich current one, would have been in the test team. He has yet to hit the rhythm of the recent past, and struggled for luck as well as form, having Hawkins dropped at second slip. The good fortune was monopolised by Sears, who got Hawkins in his first over, caught behind heaving at a wide ball.

The best batting of the innings came from Dale Phillips, who scored a maiden first-class fifty at a run a ball. I enjoyed his fluent driving through the offside, and so did the Wellington bowlers, judging from the opportunities they kept giving him to repeat the shot.

Phillips was joined by Hamish Rutherford, well-known in county circles. I saw him make a debut test century against England in Dunedin seven years ago, but he has become stuck in the cricket netherland populated by batsmen who look better than almost anybody in the domestic game, but who are not able to turn that into consistent runs at the higher level (for an English equivalent see Vince J).

Phillips slowed after passing fifty and was dismissed by the ball of the day from Ollie Newton, one that veered in from well outside off to knock out the off stump. A lunch score of 118 for three was indicative of an enterprising and entertaining morning.

The pace slowed in the afternoon as Wellington’s bowlers became more thoughtful and accurate. Rutherford and Kelly put on 56 for the fourth wicket after which the Otago innings subsided. They were all out for 265 in the 81^st over. Sears and Newton both took four wickets.

With 13 overs to face at the day’s end, the priority for Blundell and Ravindra was survival, something they looked like achieving comfortably until the penultimate scheduled delivery, bowled by left-arm wrist spinner Rippon. It was as bad a ball as had been seen all day, a long hop well wide of leg stump. Ravindra could not resist, and set about despatching it down the Mt Victoria Tunnel. Travis Muller, at deep square leg, had assumed that his participation would not be further required and was slow to react to the unexpected approach of the ball at this late stage, but remained sufficiently composed to take the catch. Ravindra’s return to the rooms was funereal; he may have hoped that it would be empty and locked by the time he got there.

The weather on the second day came at us straight from Antarctica vis the southerly, so this account of it is as seen from the Long Room. Conway was not exposed to the cold for long: he played on to a short ball from Jacob Duffy, the pace of which was more than the batsman expected. Like Bennett, Duffy would have got international recognition in any other time.

These days, the dismissal of Conway has the effect on the Wellington batting similar to that of kicking away an old man’s stick. Collapse follows inevitably. Duffy had Blundell caught at second slip a run later, and Bracewell’s 37 was the only significant resistance; soon enough, Wellington were 144 for nine.

Sears and Bennett put on 61 for the tenth wicket, the biggest partnership of the innings. In the circumstances it would be intemperate to express disappointment with this admirable effort, but for me last-wicket stands should be the occasion of yahoo and mayhem, of clown shoes and custard pies. This was nothing but dogged common sense: Sears 41 from 154 balls, Bennett 20 from 106. No slapstick there.

The same could not be said of Otago keeper Mitch Renwick, who contributed 23 byes to Wellington’s 204. Though they weren’t all down to him, Renwick’s performance with the gloves was as lamentable as I have seen for a long time.

Otago lost Kitchen, who was bowled by Newton off the inside edge, and finished the day 91 ahead with nine wickets standing.

The wind had returned to the north-west for day three, a direction from which the RA Vance Stand affords ample protection, but it was the day four weather that was causing more concern: the forecast was apocalyptic and suggested that cricket would take second place to civil defence.

The morning confirmed that Dale Phillips is a batsman with prospects. He made a second fifty, but off 124 balls this time, so he has patience as well as shots. Rutherford also made a second, assured half century.

It became clear immediately after the luncheon interval that there had been meteorologically inspired negotiations over the ham salad. First Ravindra and Bracewell, then the rarely seen spin of Tom Blundell, tossed up some hittable stuff with the field up. Batsman Finn Allan joined in to claim Rutherford as a maiden first-class wicket, all the more notable for being the only lbw given in the whole game.

The agreed target turned out to be 279, eminently reachable in a day and a half, not so much if there was no play on the fourth day. If made, it would be the highest score in any of the eight innings played at the Basin so far this season.

At first, it seemed that Rutherford had been generous. Blundell looked terrific, driving and pulling fours with equal alacrity. He was a last-man-standing pick as test opener at Melbourne at the end of last year, but made a century in the second innings. Here, he looked every bit a test opener.

Ravindra also looked at ease, in a more defensive manner until he was bowled by a very good ball from Muller from round the wicket that left him just enough to hit off stump.

Conway batted as if the target was a pittance. His first four scoring shots were all fours, three driven and one off the edge. Such is Conway’s talent that he has the game for all circumstances. Here, it was front foot and drives. The following week, back foot, cuts and pulls. But those four shots were all there was; Duffy threw himself to his right following through to take a spectacular caught-and-bowled to dismiss him.

That was pretty much it for Wellington’s winning aspirations. Bracewell went two runs later, and though Blundell and Allen put on 58, the pace slowed and it was clear that Wellington would not beat the weather. Four wickets fell for 15 and Wellington finished the day on 185 for seven, though there was just time for Blundell to reach his hundred.

The fourth morning dawned as predicted, lacking only King Lear to egg it on. For most of my cricket watching years, that would have been it, play called off first thing, all done. But cricket grounds now dry out like a polyester shirt, and with Otago potentially needing only a few overs to win the game a start later was not out of the question. Scorecards Towers is about 20 minutes from the Basin on a Sunday, so I had decided to get there if it did start. For one thing, it is some time since I have seen the whole of a domestic first-class game, for another you never know what you might miss if you don’t go. A hattrick maybe, or a surprising finish. I kept checking Twitter for an update from Wellington Cricket. None came. Instead the live scoring suddenly fired back into life with the news that play had restarted and that Blundell was out. How was he out?

Obstructing the field.

Just the 32nd instance of this dismissal in the history of first-class cricket (using the figures in Wisden; CricInfo says 26th but misses several recent instances that Wisden lists), and only the second in New Zealand (the first being JA Hayes of Canterbury against Central Districts in 1954-5). There is a coda to this. At any time in the game’s history before 2017, it would have been handled the ball, but, for reasons that are unclear, this form of dismissal was then subsumed into obstructing the field, a description that suggests a physical altercation, rather than the batsman merely tapping the ball away from the stumps with the glove, as happened in this case. There were 63 incidences of handled the ball, rare enough to satisfy my curiosity for the extraordinary. According to reports, Blundell was the first to be recorded as out obstructing the field rather than handled the ball.

Anyway, (and this is the salient point) I was not there and will have added to my headstone, after “He never saw an opener carry their bat”, “or any of the game’s more esoteric dismissals, come to that”. Of course, I need to get a grip and realise that cricket watchers the world over will envy anybody who sees the most mundane lbw or caught-and-bowled in 2020.

Two more wickets quickly followed Blundell’s to complete an 84-run win for Otago, Wellington’s third defeat in a row.

Changes were therefore inevitable for the following weekend when Auckland were the visitors. Fraser Colson came in for  Finn Allen in the middle order, a seaming all-rounder (Sears) was replaced by a spinning all-rounder (Younghusband) and Michael Snedden (son of Martin) replaced Hamish Bennett, about whom there was talk of “workload issues”, which may have been a way of avoiding the d-word. Snedden provided continuity in the habit of falling over in the delivery stride, just as Bennett does.

The pitch was a lighter, more benevolent, Varadkar green than the militant De Valera shade of the earlier games, but with Kyle Jamieson in the opposition, Michael Bracewell did not hesitate to put Auckland in on winning the toss. Both openers went in the first three overs, Beghin lbw to McPeake playing across the line, and Solia edging a full delivery to the keeper.

Phillips then made a half century, the third time that has been so at the Basin this season. However, this was not Dale, who had so impressed for Otago, but his older brother Glenn, who we came across when he was rushed to Sydney for the test match in January. This innings was in the manner of Dale’s aggressive first-innings knock rather than the more circumspect second. It included five sixes, four pulled and one edged.

The first two wickets fell to accurate, good or full-length deliveries, an approach that Wellington would have done well to continue, rather than feeding Phillips short stuff. McPeake’s self-image was bowling 15 kph faster than he was. It was to a good length ball on off stump that Phillips fell, caught behind off Snedden.

At the other end, the bowling to left-hander Mark Chapman was fuller, but no straighter. He reached fifty from 72 balls, with 80% of his runs coming from boundaries, mostly through the offside. With a first-class average above 40 and a list A average above 50, Chapman should add to his shorter-form caps soon, though he will have to deal with bowling less imbued with the early generosity of Christmas if he does.

Martin Guptill replaced Phillips. The prospect of watching Guptill bat is always a treat, though like Mark Ramprakash there is a massive discordance between how good he looks and his test stats. Soon there was a straight-driven four that made a sound off the bat as sweet as a hummingbird uncorking champagne. But Newton, showing the value of line and length, got him with a fine ball that bounced a fraction more than expected. O’Donnell chased a wider ball from Snedden to leave Auckland at 134 for five.

Wicketkeeper Ben Horne was next in. He has the most distinctive ritual while waiting for the bowler to bowl that I have seen for some time. He begins by banging the bat really hard on the ground. I thought that a 21-gun salute was under way at the National War Memorial just down the road. Once the bowler approaches, the bat is raised to shoulder height and waved manically, as if conducting an invisible orchestra in the covers. It worked well enough here; Horne made 57, the recovery built around him.

On 90, Chapman hit the shot of the day, a square cut that left McPeake on the boundary with no chance despite having only five metres to cover. Chapman was out in the following over, five short of a deserved century when he was caught at slip off Gibson while deciding whether to play or leave. Gibson did a decent job into the brisk north-westerly, which he needs to be careful about; you don’t want to get a reputation as an into-the-wind bowler at the Basin if you have aspirations towards old age.

Kyle Jamieson has a wonderfully straightforward approach to batting: play well back to anything short of a length, well forward to the rest, and be aggressive except when you really can’t be. He beat Horne to fifty despite coming in 13 overs later. They put on 85 for the seventh wicket. McPeake took three quick wickets to finish the innings at 279.

Wellington had seven overs to bat at the end of the day, always a nervous time, especially for Rachin Ravindra, who had given it away so memorably in these circumstances the week before. Today it was Blundell who did not make it to the close. He misjudged a short one from Jamieson and shovelled a catch to mid on.

The second day began in perfect conditions, with a clear blue sky. A photo of the ground at the start of play was liked and retweeted more than anything else that I have posted. It was one of those timeless days where you could close your eyes to the sound of bat on ball and be at Folkestone in the 70s, Mote Park in the 80s, Bath Rec in the 90s or your favourite ground whenever.

Only one wicket fell all day, that of Ravindra, driving a little loosely at Jamieson to be caught in the gully for 23. Ravindra has to avoid the reputation as a maker of elegant trifles (see Vince J).

For the rest of the day, Conway and Bracewell worked their way towards a third-wicket partnership of 287. Conway is patient, waiting for the ball does not have to be bad, just not quite angelic. Here, scoring square of both sides of the wicket dominated, though there were shots down the ground too, notably the six over long on with which Conway reached his century.

Worst moment of Auckland’s day was just before lunch when Conway fell for the trap that had been set all morning and hit a catch off Jamieson to deep square leg where a routine catch was put down.

Bracewell, who is quite capable of playing aggressively, sensibly played the supporting role here. His century was his first for Wellington in first-class cricket (he made seven for Otago), and helped suppress a growing reputation as a non-converter of fifties.

That Wellington did not run away with the day as it went on was thanks to a sluggish pitch and disciplined bowling. We have not seen one of these, hard-to-get-out-but-hard-to-score-on pitches at the Basin for a while, and let’s hope that we have a long wait for the next one.

Off spinner Will Somerville came on for the 26th over and bowled through until the new ball was taken. He gave Auckland control without looking like taking a wicket (he took two the following day). His admirable performance made me miss Jeetan Patel, who did the same job for the home team for the best part of two decades. Did anybody else feel the same? Probably not. Patel never got the recognition in his home town that that he has in Birmingham, where they hold him in reverence. Wellington have not replaced him. Here, Bracewell—12 wickets in a decade—was Wellington’s lead spinner (though for several overs the scoreboard told us he was Blundell). Younghusband bowled just one over.

The day was enlivened at lunchtime by an outbreak of the Scarborough Festival. A brass band appeared and treated us to a lunchtime concert, though, like the Wellington attack, it knew only one tune (Can’t Take My Eyes Off You). It was to do with the filming of a segment of the New Zealand version of Taskmaster.

Towards the end of the day there was use of experimental law 2.8.4, which states:

If the umpires cannot find any reason to suspend play under this law, they may still do so from time-to-time purely for their own gratification.

The players left the field for 20 minutes because of a problem with the run-up area just behind the crease at the northern end. Compacted sand was said to be the issue. As is usual, the first attempted remedy was that everybody with an official title of some kind went out to the middle and stared very hard at the offending area. When that didn’t work, the groundsman banged a heavy tool on the turf, which might have been thought likely to intensify any compaction problem. But it did the trick and the game continued. At the close, Conway was 149 and Bracewell 123.

I wasn’t there for the final two days. Auckland were set 167 to avoid an innings defeat, which they managed comfortably, Wellington having taken too much time in building the lead, but a side that has lost three in a row may be forgiven for consolidating.

The Plunket Shield disappears for three months now, like the British Raj heading for the hills to avoid the heat of summer. Test cricket returns to the Basin next week, however, and I give thanks that I will be there.