Skullduggery at the Basin as the North Koreans return

Wellington v Central Districts, Basin Reserve, 50 overs, 2 February 2024

Scorecard

We knew that it would rain. The forecast wes decisive. Yet still we turned up at the Basin. Rain is to cricket people what death is to everybody else. We know that it is inevitable, but we carry on as if it wasn’t there. This game at the Basin showed why we behave in this curious way.

The match was abandoned, as we always expected it to be, with the points shared. But we saw some fine batting and bowling, some terrible batting and bowling, collapse, recovery, and (possibly) skullduggery. A brilliant day.

Wellington won the toss and chose to bat, defying the convention that when Duckworth, Lewis and Stern are about you bat last so that they show you their working as you go. Central demonstrated later why that is a good plan. 

Nor did the top and middle order justify the decision. When the rain first came, after 20 overs, Wellington were 76 for six. There was some good bowling, notably from Basin Reserve anti-hero Blair Tickner who nagged away on an off stump line and conceded only eight from his first four overs. Central skipper Dane Cleaver (cousin of Kane Williamson) maintained attacking fields, thinking that rolling Wellington cheaply would be the best chance of beating the weather. 

This was the first round of matches in the resumed 50-over competition following T20s that started just before Christmas, but the home batters seemed unaware of the change of format, apparently competing in recklessness. There was Severin’s hoick to deep mid-wicket, Kelly’s shovel to deep third, McLachlan’s first-ball waft outside off and Smith’s catching-practice glide to slip (all of which can be viewed via the scorecard link, above).

The rain came first after 20 overs, causing an interruption of 70 minutes. As they resumed one of the Basin regulars asked which of us would take 130 as Wellington’s total. I was inclined to accept. Resuming for Wellington were Muhammad Abbas and Logan van Beek. Here, readers need to be aware of a backstory. A week before, Wellington played Canterbury in the elimination final of the T20 competition. With an over to go, Canterbury required 21 for victory. Van Beek was the bowler. He has been Wellington’s death bowler of choice, but the memory of his being hit for 33 off an over at the end of the match against Central a week earlier fluttered at the back of my mind. 

The first two balls both went for a single, so with 19 wanted off four, Wellington’s place in the final seemed booked. The trouble was that van Beek relied completely on yorkers, but could not quite land them, so it was all low full tosses, two of which Matt Henry hit for six, and as in that disastrous over at the Basin, there were a couple of wides. With just a single from the penultimate ball it was Zac Foulkes who faced the last, needing three to win. Another full toss was sent to mingle with the trees, and Wellington were out. So if redemption was available, van Beek wanted a share. 

In the T20s, 20-year-old Muhammad Abbas has made a name as a strokeplayer. Here he showed that judgment and the ability to bespeak his game to the occasion is part of his package. Van Beek matched him in restraint; no boundaries were hit, or attempted, in the first seven overs after the resumption. 

Gradually, they increased the pace. In the 30th over Abbas twice straight drove Small to the boundary. In the 41st, Abbas went down the pitch to hit slow left-armer Lennox for six over long on. Van Beek did the same from the last ball of the over, and hit seven more sixes in the remaining six overs. The Central bowlers, so disciplined and accurate earlier, now became the opposite. 

Abbas was out for 65 from 77 balls. His seventh-wicket partnership with van Beek was worth 159, beating the previous Wellington record of 130 by Bell and Mather against Northern at Blake Park, Mt Maunganui. I was there for that one, on New Year’s Day in my first summer in New Zealand. 

Van Beek was out in the final over, for 136 from 99 balls including 11 fours and eight sixes. It was the second-highest score ever made by a No 8 in List A cricket worldwide, beaten only by an innings in the domestic competition in Bangladesh. 

DLS got to work on Wellington’s 281 for eight, and reduced it to a target of 274. Usually an interruption to the innings of the team batting first results in an increased target, but the loss of so many early wickets meant that the algorithm determined that to have fewer overs in which to preserve scarce resources was an advantage. 

It was clear from the start of the Central reply that there was no chance of the innings lasting its course. It is essential in these circumstances that the players have accurate information about DLS targets; it is with regret, therefore, that I inform you that the North Koreans are once more in control of the Basin Reserve scoreboard. 

Long-time readers will recall that for some years the amount of fake news purveyed by the board led me to believe that Kim Jung Un and his mates were using it to undermine the moral fibre of the western world. It has improved more recently, but now they are back.

What do we ask of a board? The basics are the team score; who the batters are and what they have; and who is bowling. Only the first is consistently available at the Basin this season. Batters’ scores flash on for six seconds before disappearing; the bowler’s name does the same, except during the second half of the T20 innings when it was not shown at all. A miscellany  of other information is there instead, including what had happened earlier in the over, a comparison of progress in each innings (always a useless statistic), even how many balls were left after one over of the 47 had been bowled, and the weather in Pyongyang, all instead of what we actually wanted to know (I made the last one up, but the rest were there). At one point, the number of wickets lost was shown in three places, but the batters’ names nowhere. People who knew anything at all about cricket would not commit these atrocities of misinformation, so the North Koreans it must be.

In the circumstances the DLS target, updated every ball, would also have been useful, but this was left to the hand-operated board, and was changed only at the end of each over. With the rain getting ever closer, the Central openers, Boyle and Heaphy, made good use of this information, and made sure that they were ahead as they approached the 20 overs that are the minimum needed to allow a win by one side or the other. This is when the trouble started. 

The rain was timing its approach as precisely as the Central batters. As the 20th over began we were in the transition from damp to wet. Nathan Smith was bowling from the southern end, into the northerly (I had not mentioned that a gale was blowing at the Basin as regular readers will assume that). Three runs came off the first three balls. The umpires were starting to look at the sky, each other, and the sky again, but were prepared to stay long enough for the bowler to run in three times more to give us a match. The first of these was a legside wide. 

Smith ran in for the second time, only to pull out as he reached the umpire, protesting at the gale, the King Lear of the South. At the next attempt he managed to let go of the ball, landing it mid-pitch, then watched it bounce high and wide to the boundary for five wides. This was enough for the umpires, who called a halt, rightly given the strength of the rain. 

Words were exchanged between the teams, with Smith protesting that (and I remove a couple of adverbs here) the wides were not deliberate, and that the last one slipped. Here it is; decide for yourselves. Had the incident become more widely known, the keyboard protectors of the Spirit of Cricket would, no doubt, have had little sleep over the last few days. Up in the RA Vance Stand we thought it rather clever. Had a Central bowler done the same we would doubtless have been outraged, but so it is with most of these tests of the game’s tenuous morality. 

It was a good day at the cricket.

Thank you for watching my little show

Central Districts v Wellington, 50 overs, Fitzherbert Park in Palmerston North, 6 December 2020

Scorecard

I have written about cricket at Fitzherbert Park before. Nineteen years ago next March I covered a first-class match there between Central Districts and Auckland for CricInfo (the daily reports, or, if you prefer to relive the drama hour-by-hour, live reports, are still available). It was an odd game played on a pitch so treacherous that it might have been educated at Cambridge in the thirties.

Initially, the problem was sudden, rearing bounce. As the game progressed, this was varied by an increasing number that kept low, the mix trending towards the latter. At tea on the first day, I raised the possibility that the match could become the first anywhere in the world to be over on day one since Kent v Worcestershire at Tunbridge Wells in 1960 (you may sense in the angry-young-man tone of the reports the concern of a writer fearing that he will be paid for one day’s work when he had budgeted for four). In fact, it just stretched into the third, the obduracy and skill of Mark Richardson being decisive.

Palmerston North (Palmerston is a small town in the South Island) is a couple of hours’ drive north of Wellington, and in cricketing geography is part of Central Districts, which cover the bottom half of the North Island except Wellington, and the top bit of the South Island. It is the only serious contender for Wellington’s claim to be the windiest place in the country. That is due to its flatness, something that presents the navigationally challenged such as myself with difficulties, depriving us of topographical clues. Once, I made three attempts to leave the city, but arrived back in the centre each time, as if I were staging the Hampton Court maze scene in Three Men in a Boat in a modern setting.

Fitzherbert Park is one of five venues Central use during the course of the season, the others being the sublime Pukekura Park in New Plymouth, the Saxton Oval in Nelson, McLean Park in Napier, and Nelson Park in Napier when McLean Park needs time to recover from the rugby season (as you will see from the recycling of Palmerston and Nelson, New Zealand’s English placenames were selected from a narrow range of nineteenth century imperial figures, one reason why the current trend towards the use of Māori placenames is a good thing),

Fitzherbert Park is a pleasant venue, though not an outstanding one by New Zealand standards. Thinking of a similar ground in the UK, the best I could come up with was Archdeacon's Meadow in Gloucester, to which Gloucestershire switched when the Wagon Works Ground became unfit for first-class cricket (or rather when it was recognised that it had been unfit for that purpose for some time). It has a main road running down one side but is otherwise tree-lined. The stand being full of excited young players—commendable, but noisy—I took my place on some raised seats under a tree at deep extra cover.

This was the third of the ten-match league stage of the 50-over competition. The winner hosts the final. Second and third play off to meet them. Both Central and Wellington had lost their first two games, so the loser here would face a tough challenge to finish in the top three. Both sides were without key personnel in the test and New Zealand A teams.

Central won the toss and decided to bat. Wellington attacked early on, with four close catchers. This was good to see, but to no avail as both McPeake and Bennett were both expensive in their opening spells. In the fourth over Bayley Wiggins cut Bennett for six. Central reached 50 in the ninth over.

The introduction of Sears brought some control—just ten came from his first four overs—and the first wicket. Wiggins drove casually to mid off to be caught by Bracewell.

George Worker has been on the fringe of the international team for a while, and has made ten appearances in shorter forms. He showed his value with bat and ball here. In partnership with Ben Smith the hundred mark was passed in the 20th over and it seemed as if a total of around 300 was a realistic aspiration, but Worker also fell to a casual shot, to be caught at mid-wicket off legspinner Younghusband.

Around this time, two ducks were observed circling the ground, an ominous portent in the superstitious mind of the cricketer. Nobody went scoreless, but from that time on wickets fell regularly enough to deny Central the resource and momentum needed for a big score.

Tom Bruce’s was a key wicket. He can be as devastating a batsman as any in the final overs, but he had his middle stump knocked back by Younghusband when coming down the pitch. Hamish Bennett left the field after his first three expensive overs, and did not return, so the leggie was promoted from luxury to essential status. He responded well with three for 42. I hope that this encourages Bracewell to prefer Younghusband to his own rustic off spin more often.

Smith top scored with 79. He dispatched Younghusband into the flowerbed across the main road, but was caught on the mid-wicket boundary trying a repeat two overs later.

That Central finished with as many as 261 was thanks to some judicious late hitting by Clarkson, who took four fours off McPeake in the 47th over, and Dudding, who left no part of the bat unused in making 15 off the final over of the innings. I made a note that Central were 20 short, and, for once, I was about right.

The early part of the Wellington reply was a game of two ends. From the City End, Seth Rance kept it tight, conceding 19 from his first five overs, while profligacy from the River End meant that Wellington had made 60 by the end of the tenth.

Andrew Fletcher hit four boundaries off Liam Dudding’s opening over, all driven through the covers. The only wicket to fall in this period was that of Lauchie Johns, run out backing up when the ball flicked of Rance’s finger as he followed through.

Slow left-armer Jayden Lennox, playing the seventh match of a career so far limited to 50-over cricket, came on for the 14th over. I had not heard of him, but was greatly impressed by his performance here. He took one for 20 from his initial seven-over spell, the wicket being that of Fletcher, bowled by a ball that hurried on as he stepped back to cut.

With 97 to get from 17 overs and eight wickets standing a position from which Wellington should have won with something to spare. Win they did, but easy it was not. Bracewell and Johnson both fell to catches off Worker, to short fine leg and short third man respectively.

Jakob Bhula had come in at the fall of the first wicket, but hit not a single boundary between the 21st and 41st overs, when an inside edge bounced over the keeper’s head. He was a Morris Minor obdurately doing 30 with no higher gear available, slowing down the following traffic.

Fraser Colson joined Bhula and initially found it as hard to meet the desired scoring rate. Lennox was as abstemious as he had been earlier, but George Worker struggled to find his length and line on returning to the attack and Colson hit two fours in the first over of his spell before being bowled coming down the pitch to Lennox, who appears to relish a challenge.

Forty were needed from seven overs. A required rate of a little under seven an over is usually inconsequential these days, but Bhula was as becalmed as Ben Ainslie’s yacht has been in the pre-America’s Cup races so far, and though the new batsman, Gibson, hit the ball hard from the start, every one went straight to a fielder in the inner ring. One came from the 45th over.

It seemed when Gibson mishit an on drive off Field that Wellington’s last hope was gone, but the ball went high enough for the strengthening wind to carry it towards the mid-wicket boundary, which happened to be the shortest on the ground, and it dropped just over the rope for six to keep Wellington in the race.

With 22 needed from the last three overs, two of which were to be delivered by the reliable Rance, Central remained marginal favourites, but 16 came from the 48th over including two fours and a six from Gibson, who was growing fond of the short legside boundary.

Now, and only now, did Bhula find his boldness and touch, completing the paperwork with two fours off the first two balls of the 49th over. The image that sprung into my mind was that of Janet Webb sweeping into view as the credits rolled at the end of Morecambe and Wise, thanking people for watching her show, for this was a victory won despite Bhula’s unbeaten 97, rather than because of it.

The unusual structure of the competition had the two teams back at Fitzherbert Park for a second game two days later, but it was rained off. Both registered one victory in the two rounds that followed before the competition made way for the T20 during the summer holidays. Wellington are fourth, just two points behind third-placed Otago. With all four of their remaining fixture at the Basin Reserve, they can still make the play offs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wellington v Otago, 50 overs, Basin Reserve, 13 January 2016

Scorecard

Any day that begins with the acquisition of two new members of the primrose brotherhood is bound to be a good one, though may be prone to anti-climax. So it was at the Basin today. The Otago batting, then the weather, and finally the match, fizzled, which is not what you expect to say of a game that ended in a tie.

In the past month, five new Wisdens have been added to the shelves in the library at My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers. My Khandallah Correspondent, in her wonderful way, presented me with the 1947 edition for our anniversary and followed up with 1948 and 1949 at Christmas. Today I persuaded the fine people at the New Zealand Cricket Museum to split a 1960s set to sell me 1963 (the centenary Wisden) and 1965 at NZ$30 (roughly £12) each, a snip. This means that 1962 is the earliest that I don’t have, and the grand total is 62.

Otago won the toss and chose to bat. Arnel was accurate and made the most of a hint of green about the pitch. That was how he induced an edge from Anaru Kitchen, well caught by Papps at second slip, low to his left.

Michael Bracewell dodged bullets with improbability of James Bond. He was dropped by Papps in the gully and Verma from a hard hit caught-and-bowled chance; almost played on; and played and missed numerous times, but also played some fine shots in between. He was finally caught by Murdoch from a steepler to deep mid-wicket that tested the fielder’s attention span as much as his catching.

This brought together Neil Broom and Hamish Rutherford, both batsmen who have not quite made it in the national side. Broom is in excellent form at the moment and glided to a half century at almost a run a ball. Rutherford hit hard and well. He is a good player who may have been miscast as a test opener, but could return to international cricket in the one-day team.

At 147 for two in the 27^th over, a score well past 300 seemed probable, but both batsmen were out on that score. Jeetan Patel scurried back to catch Broom’s top edge off his own bowling, and Rutherford was caught behind off a leg side strangle. The bowler was Alecz (sic) Day, who bowled only the one over in the innings, skipper Papps apparently regarding the ball aimed a yard down the leg side as having been exploited to its full potential.

Otago struggled to 249 thanks to a dogged de Boorder, who hit only one boundary in his 34, and test off spinner Mark Craig, who hit 46 from 41 balls. Hitting the ball out of the Basin is quite common, it being a small piece of real estate, but I have not seen the trees next to the Dempster Gates cleared before as Craig managed today.

Just like the pitch at the Plunket Shield game between the same teams last month, this one appeared pacier than we are used to at the Basin. However, more batsmen than usual were caught from catches that lobbed up off mistimed shots, which suggests that the ball was stopping, as they say.

Was 249 enough, or perhaps 30 or more short? We were never to find out. As the Wellington innings got under way the cloud began to darken and lower. By the 20^th over, the minimum required for a result, an interruption was obviously imminent.

Now the Basin Reserve scoreboard intervened crucially. This, you may recall, is what Mike Selvey described as the “ransom-note scoreboard” during England’s 2002 tour because of the eccentric collection of fonts that it used. If the North Koreans ever take up cricket their scoreboards will be modelled on the Basin’s, a cruel mixture of the hard-to-interpret and downright wrong. As ever, a few blown lightbulbs made it difficult to discern quite what numbers were showing for total and batsmen’s scores.  

At the start of the 23^rd over Wellington were 72 for one. A light drizzle was already in the air. Heavier rain was clearly close by and heading our way. This made the Duckworth-Lewis target  the most important piece of information on the scoreboard. As the first ball of the over was bowled, it read “74 to win”. Michael Papps and Steven Murdoch and Michael Papps are as experienced a combination as New Zealand cricket has to offer. They knew that the loss of a wicket in this over would inflate the D/L target, so were cautious, making just two singles from the over, so raising the total to 74.

But let’s look again at that phrase “74 to win”. Did it mean that 74 were needed to win? It did not. Seventy-four was the par score, which meant that 75 was the winning target. Hence, when the umpires took the players off at the end of the over, never to return, the match was tied, to the surprise of the batsmen.

This, of course, is much the same mistake that South Africa made in the 2003 World Cup, eschewing the chance to make single against Sri Lanka that would have kept them in the tournament.

My Blean correspondent will be reminded of the Essex match at Folkestone in ’77. Kent were 156 for three, apparently cruising to their target of 184, when beset with one of their more spectacular collapses. Within the hour, ashen-faced, we were watching Kevin Jarvis stride to the middle with the score 183 for nine.

I have written before that Jarvis was the worst batsman I have ever seen, and do not retreat from this judgement. The sole counter argument is that, once, he hit the winning run in a first-class game. Somehow, he got a bat on a delivery from JK Lever and completed the single, then, along with Derek Underwood, turned to walk back to the pavilion.

The Essex team, and the umpires (Jack Crapp and Ken Palmer) stayed where they were, looking surprised. You see, they had made the mistake that Murdoch and Papps were to repeat 39 years later; they believed what they saw on the scoreboard, which said that 185 were needed to win.

As well as our pleasure at the win, and our unlikely hero, we also enjoyed the out-foxing of Keith Fletcher, widely regarded as a Mike Brearley without the degrees when it came to canniness.

In the present, by the following Sunday, for the Auckland match the Basin scoreboard had replaced “to win” with “par score”.

Wellington v Central Districts, 50 overs, Basin Reserve, 23 March 2014

http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/576/576383.html

This was not a gripping game of cricket. From early on it was apparent that Central would not make a score that even Wellington’s notoriously unreliable win-detection radar could fail to trace. But it was a perfect day at the Basin, on the cusp of summer and autumn, rather like it had been half a world away at St Lawrence six months ago, so pulse-quickening cricket was not essential for the day to be thoroughly pleasurable.

Central’s innings began and ended badly. Ben Smith was first to go, leg before to Brent Arnel in the third over to one that nipped back. It looked a little high. Jamie How was caught at first slip by Franklin off Gillespie for six, and Carl Cachopa was caught behind by Papps off Arnel for a duck: 28 for three after nine overs.

Was this Gillette Cup Final syndrome at work? English cricket’s knockout competition used to culminate in a final at Lord’s on the first Saturday in September. It was a 60-over competition, so had to be under way by 10.30 in the morning to allow a finish in daylight. With early-autumn dew still around during the opening overs, the team winning the toss would put the opposition in with the expectation that simple seam-up bowling would see off the top order. This did not happen every year, but did so often enough that knowledgeable spectators would ensure that they were in their seats half an hour before the start on the basis that the toss might be the biggest influence on the outcome.

A fifty partnership for the fourth wicket between David Meiring and Corrie van Wyk cheered Central up. I had not come across Meiring before. He was born in Worcester, but has a sound New Zealand cricketing heritage; his grandfather is Tom Pritchard, the fast bowler who played the majority of his cricket in the County Championship for Warwickshire (and a few games for Kent in 1956).

Meiring drove a half volley to cover to be caught by Grant Elliott on 35, just when he looked set for a big innings. He was replaced by Dane Cleaver, who is also well connected; he is Kane Williamson’s cousin (does the whole family have rhyming first names?). Cleaver went wandering across his crease and was leg before to Woodcock. This left Central at 91 for five, facing the familiar quandary of having to speed up without losing wickets.

Van Wyk and Central skipper Kieran Noema-Barnett proceeded to do precisely that. At the start of their partnership it seemed that Central would struggle to reach 200. When the hundred partnership came up just under 20 overs later, 250 was in prospect.

However, van Wyk was out without addition to the partnership for 70, caught by substitute Jeetan Patel from a mistimed chip on the onside off Elliott, and a collapse of Reichsmark proportions ensued. The last five wickets went for just nine runs. The innings ended with a spectacular piece of fielding. Last man Panda (that’s what Cricket Archive calls him) Mathieson sent the ball high into the air off the top edge. Racing in from fine leg, Stephen Murdoch had to cover the 30 metres or so from his starting position to where ball would return to earth while persuading two of his colleagues, converging on the same location, to leave it for him to deal with. He pulled it off with wonderful one-handed catch after a full-length dive.

With four for 26 Arnel was the pick of the bowlers, but all performed respectably or better. Elliott’s crafty trundling produced one for 25. Even so, it was sad to see Jeetan Patel reduced to carrying the drinks. He is heading back to Warwickshire shortly and may feel that he is better valued in Birmingham than in New Zealand.

Michael Pollard was out in the first over of the reply, cutting Seth Rance to Mathieson at third man, but that was as high as Central’s hopes got. Michael Papps saw the innings through, finishing with 83 not out. He put on 87 for the second wicket with Murdoch and 93 for the third with Tom Blundell. I have written in the past that 34-year-old Papps is occupying a place that might be better given to a younger player. His form has been so good over the past two years that now I’m not so sure. New Zealand’s search for an effective opening partnership remains unsuccessful, and letting Papps have a go as an interim measure for a year or so is a more sensible proposal than some on offer.

Though the outcome was never in doubt, there was interest in whether Wellington could reach their target of 201 within 40 overs, thus gaining a potentially valuable bonus point. The top four go through to the knockout stage, the byzantine nature of which means that there is considerable advantage to being placed as high as possible on the qualifying table.

Good slow bowling by Tarun Nethula and Marty Kain slowed the pace through the middle of the innings, but little attempt was made to attack them. Kain, in particular, was allowed to settle into a containing rhythm. Noema-Barnett rightly retained an attacking field, so if the batsmen wanted to force things they would have to take risks to do so.

Sixteen were needed from the 40^th over to secure the bonus point. Blundell was bowled middle stump from the first ball as he attempted a desperate dilscoop. This brought in James Franklin who took twos off his first three deliveries before settling the matter with two sixes from the final two balls.

In the final round of games Wellington yet again contrived to lose when it appeared less trouble to win, thus conceding home advantage in the minor semi-final to Auckland, so this was the last game at the Basin this season, and the least spectacular day of those that I have seen, though that is more a measure of the luck I have had with of the rest of the cricket that I have watched there since October. As cricket watchers say to each other on these occasions, winter well.