Vintage Summer 2015

John Arlott’s Vintage Summer 1947 was one of the first cricket books I owned. Written 20 years after the event, it is the great commentator’s memoire of the second post-war season, his first as a full-time commentator and reporter. By the time he wrote the book Arlott was established as one of Britain’s best wine writers; “vintage” was his highest bestowment of approval.

Arlott had spent most of the Second World War as a policeman in Southampton, dodging the bombs and dealing with the detritus that war washes up on civilised shores. Two years after peace, he spent the summer watching cricket and counting it as work. His pleasure at this personal liberation suffuses the pages and there is a sense that the country as a whole was breathing out, at last.

Cricket grounds were packed: 14,500 wedged into the College Ground at Cheltenham for the Championship decider between Gloucestershire and Middlesex. A third of that today and the ground would be thought full. Forty-six thousand paid at the gate to join the members during the five days of Canterbury Week.

There was some wonderful cricket, much of it from the Middlesex pair of Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, both of whom scored an unprecedented 3,000 runs, carefree, and dashing, and including six centuries between them in the tests against South Africa.

I went to a talk by Compton at the County Ground in Bristol in the early 90s, and saw boyhood adoration in the rheumy eyes of those who had seen him play, though some had the decency to be as appalled as I was at their hero’s shameful racism.

Which have been my vintage summers?

The sun-drenched salad days of the mid-seventies are certainly among them. In 1975 I saw hundreds for Clive Lloyd in the first World Cup Final, and Colin Cowdrey against the Australians in the same week.

In 1976 I was there for double and single hundreds, both of pure silk, by Zaheer Abbas in Canterbury Week; Holding’s demolition of England on an Oval featherbed; a Lord’s final win for Kent, all but denied by a one-legged D’Oliveira fifty; and a helicopter bringing the Sunday League trophy to Maidstone as rivals faltered in the last moments of the season. The early years of the new century are there too, when I was CricInfo's man in the North Island. Like John Arlott, I could barely believe that I was being paid to watch cricket and report on it.

But 2015 topped them all. It presented as pure a distillation of remarkable cricket as it would be possible to conceive or hope for; cricket that was better than any that I have seen before or, unless I am very lucky, will see again.

Here are some of the features that made it an unmatched vintage.

The summer of Sangakkara

The great Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara said farewell to Wellington with a test double hundred and two one-day hundreds. The double century was a masterpiece of technique and restraint. The second half of the innings was made with the tail for company, but he farmed the strike as efficiently as a Dutch tulip farmer and still scored at four an over.  

At the Cake Tin during the pre-World Cup one day series, he peeled off a hundred with the nonchalance of a high roller taking a thousand dollars from his stash. Made at just over a run a ball, it set New Zealand a target that was too much on the day.

Best of all was his 70-ball century against England in the World Cup. Poor England. In their old-fashioned way, they thought that 309 offered maximum security, but it turned out to be an open prison out of which Sri Lanka could saunter at will. Sangakkara’s century was his fastest in ODIs, one of four consecutive hundreds he made in the World Cup, but he was no more than toying with the England attack. Victory came in the 48^th over, but it could have been ten overs earlier if he had felt like it.

To see one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket displaying his full brilliance would be enough to make any summer a vintage one.

Williamson and Watling’s world record

Kane Williamson’s batting in 2015 gave us an inkling of what watching Bradman must have been like.

Please understand that I am not being so foolish as to say that Williamson is the new Bradman. That would need a touch of the sun well beyond what is available here in Wellington. But the relentless rationality that Williamson brought to the crease in 2015 (it produced a test average of 90 or so for the year; Bradmanesque, some might say) must have been about the closest we have seen to the Don’s human algorithm for a long time: a run-scoring answer to almost every ball, but usually low-risk, rarely flashy and never extravagant (except when driving a six to win a game against Australia with one wicket to fall); timing and placement rather than power and effort. Of course, Bradman kept it up for twenty years, that’s the difference.

He began at the Basin during the test against Sri Lanka during the first week of the year. After a first-innings 69—it was a surprise when he was out, as it always is these days—in the second innings Williamson was established again, but with wickets falling around him. Soon, only five remained, the lead a mere 24.

Williamson addressed the situation by ignoring it. As the finest batsmen do, he responded to each ball by assessing its merit and acting accordingly. As commentators have noted, he does this no matter what form of the game he is playing. It sounds straightforward, but only a very good player bring it off.

Williamson and BJ Watling put on an unbroken 365 for the sixth wicket, a new test record. Remarkably, the existing record was created at the Basin less than a year before, by Brendon McCullum and Watling against India. So Watling joined Bradman, Hammond and Ames as the only players to break their own world partnership record (at least since the early days of test cricket when it must have happened more often).

The earlier stand had saved the game; this one won it, establishing BJ Watling as the lost Tracy brother in terms of rescuing impossible situations. In this era of batsmen-keepers, he is as good as anybody behind the stumps. Yet when the journalists and websites picked their end-of-year World XIs only the Australian writer Chloe Saltau (of those I have seen) picked Watling as wicketkeeper. He is the forgotten hero of New Zealand cricket.

In fifty years’ time people will look at the scorecard of the Basin Reserve test of 2015 and will say “A win from a deficit of 135 on first innings, a world record and double hundreds by two of the finest batsmen ever to play the game. Anybody who saw that game was pretty lucky”. So we were.

A great day at the Cake Tin (1)

The World Cup group match between New Zealand and England was among the best days I have spent at the cricket, and certainly the most astonishing. I have watched the highlights every few weeks since and it enthralls every time.

With England 107 for three batting first, the game had fewer than 20 overs to run, that’s how astonishing it was. This came about because of two extraordinary performances.

Tim Southee’s seven for 33 was the best one-day bowling I have seen. I have thought about this and looked through Wisden for alternatives. The Yorkshire slow left-armer Don Wilson’s six for 18 at Canterbury in the first year of the Sunday League was the previous best, statistically at least (it was one of the great Kent collapses: 70 for one becomes 105 all out). Joel Garner at the ’79 World Cup final? Derek Underwood most Sundays? Not as good as Southee at the Cake Tin this day.

The ball in Southee’s hands was an obedient shepherd’s dog. Four of the seven were bowled, each with the ball no more than grazing the off stump.

I’m not one for atmosphere at the cricket, generally speaking. I’d choose the quiet hum of the Mote or Pukekura Park a quarter full over a throbbing stadium almost any day, but it was great to be at the Cake Tin to hear Southee’s name sang out just as Richard Hadlee’s was thirty years ago.

Southee’s performance would have been enough to put that day on this list. What followed ranks it as a contender for the day, of all the days over the past fifty years, that I would most like to watch again.

Brendon McCullum went about the pursuit of the modest target of 124 as if it were a silent film heroine tied to the train tracks awaiting urgent rescue. For Anderson, Broad and Finn having an opening batsmen charging towards them like a pocket Trumper was utterly disconcerting. A run rate of 15 an over in a 50 over match. It was magnificent in its temerity.

A wonderful day.

A great day at the Cake Tin (2)

Martin Guptill caressed the first ball of the match to the straight boundary and the World Cup quarter-final between New Zealand and the West Indies was under way. In its way, Guptill’s innings was even more remarkable than McCullum’s, not just for its prolificacy.

It was paced quite beautifully and there was hardly a shot that the MCC coaching book wouldn’t be proud of. Guptill’s century came up in 111 balls with 12 fours but no sixes. Only then did he put the foot down, roaring out of sight leaving behind a dust cloud of extraordinary numbers: 137 in 52 balls with 12 more fours…and 11 sixes.

And all with lovely, pure cricket strokes. I have been trying to decide who Guptill reminded me of that day, without reaching a convincing answer. Cowdrey? Too much power. Not the brutality of Viv Richards. Not as rugged as Gooch. Then yesterday I read this:

…cricket of elegant classicism, of economy of movement, of touch and precision rather than brawn. But then I also remembered how he pervaded a crease rather than simply occupying it, and how he obtained such power from such a minuscule backlift, barely a flex of the wrists.

That’s it. Apart from the bit about the miniscule backlift, that could be a description of Martin Guptill in the World Cup quarter-final. In fact, it is Gideon Haigh on Martin Crowe, whose death has inspired some fine writing. There is no finer compliment for a New Zealand batsman than to say that he reminds the spectator of Crowe, especially Guptill, whose mentor Crowe was.

At the Basin test a couple of weeks ago I sat next to someone who dismissed Guptill’s innings as being made against poor bowling. Well, up to a point, but let us give Guptill some credit for making them bowl badly. It was a World Cup quarter final and there was immense pressure on the batsman to which he responded magnificently (the same man reckoned the McCullum’s triple hundred was made against bent bowling, so perhaps I am paying him too much attention).

More McCullum

Only once during that great day against England did I actually gasp at what was occurring out there. Not at a Southee wicket, a McCullum six or even Adam Milne’s brilliant boundary catch. It was when McCullum placed the sixth close catcher for Morgan.

Six close catchers in a 50-over game; something I have not seen before and am unlikely to see again, unless McCullum’s disregard for the conventions of captaincy becomes contagious. Who else would have bowled his lead bowler out as McCullum did that day? It won the game.

Nor would many captains have declared as early as he did at the Basin test, giving Sri Lanka, Sangakkara and all, a glimpse of victory, staking the series lead on a greater chance of winning the test.

McCullum’s compulsion to audaciousness was one of the defining features of 2015. Batting with resilience, style, panache, and charged with TNT. Bowling that was perfect. And leadership that sailed over the horizon to confound the flat Earth sceptics. A vintage summer indeed, the best in half a century.

England v Sri Lanka, World Cup, Cake Tin, 1 March 2015

Scorecard

The crowd on their way to the Cake Tin on Sunday morning comprised three groups, all easily identifiable.

The Sri Lankans were clearly going to enjoy themselves, whatever happened.

The English bore the grim countenance of a congregation on its way to hear a particularly severe Calvinist minister deliver an all-day sermon about them all being sinners and having to live a lifetime of repentance.

The New Zealanders just wanted a cricketing equivalent of a lie down in a darkened room. We were still getting over our traumatic Saturday when the national blood pressure rose to a level seen before only during the last ten minutes of the 2011 Rugby World Cup final. As New Zealand staggered to a one-wicket victory over Australia, the nation experienced more twists of fate and plucks on its heartstrings than can be found in the entire works of Dickens. No more excitement please, not today.

For the English it was a return to Dunkirk a week after evacuation, the memories of devastation and failure so raw. Like last week, they won the toss and batted.

Lasith Malinga opened the bowling, which is always something to see. I am no closer to working out how he bowls the ball so straight with his arm at that angle than I was when I first saw him. In a darts team he would clear the pub. Every time I watch Malinga I am reminded that had he been English he wouldn’t have made it to a county second XI. His extraordinary gift would have been coached out of him before his sixteenth birthday. There were yorkers to order, but perhaps the edge is coming off his pace; batsmen seem to get after him a bit more often these days.

England set off well and there was no collapse, though Ballance and Morgan are still out of form. Moeen Ali took a cheap hundred off the Scots earlier in the week, but does not look convincing as an opener against better opponents.

Joe Root was the hero, England’s youngest World Cup centurion, which might lead one to think that he is still a mere boy. In fact, he is the same age as Pitt the Younger was when he became prime minister, which says something about England’s undistinguished history in the competition.

Root reached his hundred at exactly a run a ball and blended the orthodox with the unorthodox well towards the end of the innings. If there is any consolation for England supporters it is that the batting can be built around Root for the next decade. Buttler did well too, despite being clonked on the swede by Malinga first ball.

309 was a good score, but not as good as England thought it was, Since the game a great deal has been written in the UK press about England’s obsession with statistics, often dodgy ones in that they take in many matches played before the limitation on boundary fielders was reduced, so loading the dice in favour of the batsmen. It’s as indicative as calculating travelling times between venues on the basis that they will be going by sailing ship.

There was certainly drift in the middle overs, but the target was reached with late-innings acceleration. The problem is that there was a target at all. It should be up to the batsmen to work out what is the best that can be achieved in the circumstances and then to strive for it. Another 30 runs mid-innings might have made all the difference.

And then perhaps it wouldn’t. As early as the fourth over, when Root at first slip dropped Thirimanne, thus cancelling out his own century in an instant, there was an inevitability about proceedings. Most of the writers blamed Buttler for the drop, as he had started going for the catch then pulled out. This supports my long-held view that it is always worth picking the best keeper, but Root should have caught it no matter what.

Paul Downton should buy Eoin Morgan a bracelet etched with the phrase “What would Brendon McCullum do?” So, when Sri Lanka lost their first wicket at 100 in the 19^th over, and Kumar Sangakkara, scorer of 13,000 ODI runs, came to the crease what would McCullum have done? I’m pretty sure that I know.

He would have twigged that if Sangakkara were allowed to get established he would be mightily hard to shift and would probably take Sri Lanka most of the way to victory. Therefore, he had to stop this happening and would have put on whichever of Boult or Southee was hottest that day, stationed some close catchers and told his bowler to attack, attack, attack.

He would not have put on Joe Root, occasional purveyor of rarely turning off spin, and thought himself crafty in getting through a few overs. He would have known that this would simply be to offer valet parking to one of the greatest batsmen to walk the Earth. Sangakkara scored from every one of the first 20 balls he faced.

Moeen Ali bowled tidily enough in an unbroken ten-over spell and took Dilshan’s wicket, the only one to fall. But he batsmen cruised through his spell at five an over, just right to set up the final push.

It was as if, in homage to the late Leonard Nimoy who had died a couple of days earlier, Morgan was observing Starfleet’s temporal prime directive of not interfering in events so as to change their outcome. Sri Lanka’s victory was already written in the World Cup timeline, so he wasn’t going to do a damn thing that would change it.

This is indeed the summer of Sangakkara. A double century in the test and two at the Cake Tin. It has been such a treat. This was the quickest of his 23 ODI hundreds, though it never seemed faster than languid. It was Shakespeare knocking off a sonnet, Rembrandt a self-portrait. Of course, the need that all the England quick bowlers had to test the theory that he was susceptible to the long hop on leg stump helped him along too.

My Orange County correspondent, a keen and knowledgeable Beatles fan, made a rare visit to the cricket and I must impress on him that Sangakkara batting is the equivalent of McCartney wandering out there and strumming the highlights from Revolver or Rubber Soul.

The England fielders wore a defeated air by the time Sri Lanka were halfway to the target. Run outs appeared the only way in which England might have broken the partnership, but on one of the few occasions the stumps were hit the batsmen took an overthrow.

The end came in the 48^th over, though it would have been earlier had the batsmen not lost a little timing at the end, or had Sangakkara felt like it. Thirimanne was 139 not out at the end, a fine innings, but today he was Salieri to Sangakkara’s Mozart.

The joyous cacophony of the Sri Lankan fans added to the day. It reminded me of West Indies matches in England in the seventies, particularly the Monday afternoon at the Oval in ’76 when Greenidge and Fredericks flayed England and Tony Greig grovelled before the Caribbean supporters on the western terrace.

The ludicrous structure of the competition means that England’s convincing impression of the Italian army in full retreat notwithstanding, they should still qualify for the quarter-finals, which is outrageous. Defeat by Afghanistan and elimination would be cricketing justice.

Two ODIs at the Cake Tin

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 29 January 2015

New Zealand v Pakistan, 31 January 2015

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

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

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

As it turned out, that was plenty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, Day 3, Basin Reserve

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

Good test cricket is all about change, which takes many forms. Yesterday’s play was the French Revolution up to the Reign Of Terror. It began with a wave of optimism and the expectation of quick victory; it ended in confusion and recrimination (though any resemblance between Kumar Sangakkara and Robespierre is not intentional).

Day three was the Industrial Revolution. Progress was extremely slow and for long periods it appeared that nothing was happening. Yet underneath, thanks to the hard work of a few individuals, profound transformation was taking place.

For the first hour, Latham and Rutherford were relatively untroubled, helped by some loose bowling from Sri Lanka. With four right-arm seamers of similar pace, none swingers of the ball, it seemed that Trevor Bailey’s dictum that the captain could change the bowler but not the bowling seemed to apply to Sri Lanka.

But Rutherford fell for a Mathews ruse (one of many—see below). Second slip was sent to third man to whence Rutherford steered a catch just a few balls later. He left the field knowing that he has not done enough to make certain of enjoying business class service on the way to England in May.

In Pradeep’s next over, Latham followed one to give the bowler his second wicket of the morning. Pradeep and his colleagues bowled less generously as the morning went on.

Now Herath was bowling his left-arm spin from the Government House end. He is the third-ranked bowler in the world at the moment, which is good for a rather chubby fellow who clearly dislikes fielding. Long may he prosper. He bowled tidily all day, but saved his best delivery for the scoreless Ross Taylor, who played slightly across one that spun enough to clip off stump.

McCullum began cautiously, unlike the first innings but in the same way as he did last year to cast off his triple hundred. No repeat today. He added to a somewhat unfortunate match (lost toss, golden duck, dropped catch) by wildly optimistic use of the DRS for an lbw decision against him that it took only a fleeting glance to see was cleaning out middle stump.

For taking quick, stylish runs from a tired attack, Jimmy Neesham is your man. But he does not yet do attrition very well. He was out as the result of effective use of the DRS by Sri Lanka. It showed that he had been hit in front of the stumps, not outside the line as it appeared at the time.

Angelo Mathews is the sort of captain who is so full of bright ideas that he could illuminate a day/night match from the lightbulbs popping on above his head. Now, a slip and two gullies. Now, three slips, but spread out with gaps between them. Now, give the new ball to the spinner. In the over before lunch, faced exclusively by McCullum, there were three complete changes of field.

As we have seen, one of these bright ideas accounted for Rutherford, but I have a feeling that Mathews might be a touch exasperating for those he leads.

In mid-afternoon BJ Watling joined Kane Williamson, who had been there since first down. They worked together, perfecting the steam engine for New Zealand, for the rest of the day. Williamson has become New Zealand’s best batsman, with the shots for most situations and the judgement to use them wisely.

Watling—McCullum’s partner in the record-breaking 352-run partnership here last year—is almost as reliable, if a trifle over-dependent on the third man region as a source of runs.

How different it would have been had either of the chances that Williamson offered been accepted. Perhaps the game would already be over. On 30, he hit the ball hard back to the bowler Herath, who could not hold on. On 60 he hooked Prasad straight to Pradeep at fine leg. It looked terrible, but I suspect that the pohutukawas did for him. They bloom regally at this time of year, but in the shade of a cricket ball, and it was against this background that Pradeep was trying to pick out the orb as it neared.

At the close, New Zealand are 118 ahead with five wickets left. The pitch has plenty of runs left in it, but is not a road. Another hundred might be enough to give the attack space to bowl Sri Lanka out, 150 makes New Zealand favourites. Will day four be the Velvet Revolution or the Prague Spring?

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, 2nd day, Basin Reserve

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

Let me take you back, my friends, to the December of 1946. At the Sydney Cricket Ground on the 13^th of that month, Don Bradman made 234 against England. It was his eleventh test double century. The next time a batsman scored his eleventh double century was today at the Basin Reserve, and I was there.

Once in a while you wish for something very, very hard and it comes true. I wished for a Kumar Sangakkara century and got a double.

The match situation—five down and 143 behind at the start of the day—constrained Sangakkara from deploying the full range of his talent. He was a great actor performing at a matinee, holding something back for the second house. But a bad first session would have lost Sri Lanka the match, and the series. Now, even if New Zealand bat all day tomorrow, getting back on level terms is the best they can hope for as a reward, all thanks to one great innings.

Through the morning Sangakkara’s focus was on accumulation, featuring some astute running between the wickets with Chandimal. He rarely played a false shot and—the hallmark of a great batsman—always had time to spare. In the afternoon we saw more chocolate-smooth cover drives, back knee almost on the ground, bat over the shoulder in the follow through. There is no sight more pleasing in cricket than a left-hander’s cover drive.

He became a little ragged in the final session as tiredness combined with milking what he could from the tail, to the extent of 148 combined for the seventh, eighth and ninth wicket partnerships. Only then did he offer several chances at the difficult-to-impossible end of the continuum.

One of Trent Boult’s trademark Basin miracle catches—this one half dolphin, half weightless astronaut—was needed to end Sangakkara’s innings, for 203. Every one of the New Zealand team shook his hand before he departed. We should run a cricketing etiquette class; reduced rates for needy Australians.

That Sangakkara is a great batsman is beyond question, but where does he stand among the batting aristocracy? As the best left-hander since Graeme Pollock, I would suggest. Some will favour Brian Lara, and if we are thinking of attack only, I might agree. But Sangakkara combines the fluency of Gower with the obduracy of Lawry and adds something of his own to the compound.

He was well-supported. Chandimal shared a sixth-wicket partnership of 130 without ever quite having his timing, but this did not worry him, suggesting that he has a test-match temperament.

Rangana Herath appears to be the first batsman in test history to choose the airspace over the slips as his preferred scoring area. He got the rough end of the DRS, being given out after more repeat showings than The Sound of Music. Unless it is immediately obvious that the original decision was wrong, it should not be overturned.

The New Zealand openers began the second innings with a 135 deficit and 11 overs to face, something they achieved, though not before some in the RA Vance Stand had begun to applaud Rutherford whenever he left the ball outside off stump, to reinforce and reward positive behaviour. There is a growing feeling that there is a repeating computer glitch that includes him in the test team when he should be in the ODIs.

New Zealand will not be able to put themselves in a winning position on the third day, but could go most of the way to losing the match and drawing the series.

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, 1st day, Basin Reserve

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

Three hundred runs, fifteen wickets. What a perfect distraction test cricket is. Well worth having to be lashed to the heater for half an hour on my return to My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers so as to mitigate the effects of a day in the teeth of the southerly “breeze”, as we Wellingtonians choose to describe the blastfreezer wind that blights our lives.

The calendar said 3 January; the pitch said St Patrick’s Day. No surprise that Angelo Mathews put New Zealand in. The toss is in international cricket in New Zealand is a meaningless formality, like asking if anybody at a wedding knows any reason why the bride and groom should not be married. This is because Brendon McCullum is, in his own words, “a useless tosser”. He is Superman. He tosses a kryptonite coin.

Tom Latham looked by some way the more secure of New Zealand’s opening pair, yet he was first out, playing at a short ball from Lakmal that he could have left alone. Hamish Rutherford scored 37 from 53 balls, but every shot is the closing scene of a soap opera, leaving you not knowing what will happen next.

Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor took New Zealand through to lunch, the verdancy of the pitch threatening more than it delivered. Is it my imagination, or is Ross Taylor getting more square on? Once or twice there he reminded me, and not in a good way, of the great CJ Tavaré, who would get full-chested against bouncy bowling.

After lunch, it was as if New Zealand’s great year of 2014 had all been a dream. Taylor started it, playing on to Pradeep. That brought in Brendon McCullum, who had been given the keys to the city of Wellington by Mayor Celia Wade-Brown at lunchtime.

He was out first ball, swishing at Lakmal and playing on. I hesitate to say it, given McCullum’s current place at Richie McCaw’s right hand in the New Zealand sporting pantheon, but it was a God-awful shot to play first ball in a test match on a questionable surface.

Only 79 were added after that, and 26 of them were from proper shots by Bracewell and selected grotesqueness from Boult for the last wicket.

Sri Lanka certainly bowled better after lunch, pitching the ball up more and maintaining a stricter off-stump line, but the fact that New Zealand’s three best batsmen all played on (Williamson did so too) is evidence that the pitch was not trustworthy.

In years gone by, the fragile local sporting psyche would have been plunged into gloom by these events, but the recent run of success meant that there was keen anticipation between innings at the prospect of Boult and Southee exploiting the conditions.

The breakthrough came in the ninth over when Karunaratne edged Boult to third slip.

Kumar Sangakkara was next in. Test cricket transcends partisanship, and I was hoping to see a great batsmen make a century. That Sangakkara is a great batsman is beyond question. Only Bradman has made more double hundreds and only him, Pollock, Sutcliffe and Headley, of batsmen who have played more than 20 tests, have done so with a higher average (the admirable Allen McLaughlin of Radio Sport is to be acknowledged as the source of this information).

The Basin crowd rose to its feet for Sangakkara when he passed 12,000 runs in tests, a touching and uplifting moment.

At the other end, Silva became the fourth batsman today to play on, and with delightful quirkiness. His forward defensive sent the ball spinning into the air well above his head. He turned just in time to watch it fall on top of the bails. It was Conan Doyle’s Spedogue’s Drifter come to life.

That was Doug Bracewell’s first wicket on his return to the test team. He took two more before the close. Neil Wagner has reason to be disappointed to be dropped (not a term coaches use these days, but it’s the truth) after a good performance in Christchurch, but it shows how intense competition for places has become. “Depth” and “New Zealand cricket” may now be deployed in the same sentence for purposes other than satire.

So New Zealand won the day. But we may still be blessed with a Sangakkara century tomorrow.

And, did I mention? 1953 Wisden, $20 from the Museum at lunchtime. Perfect day.