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. 

A Restful Time at the Basin Reserve

 

Wellington v Auckland, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 5 – 7 November 2022

Scorecard

Restful would be as good a description of this game as any. The scoring rate clung to two an over like lion cubs fearful of straying too far from their mother. I was there for the first two days. The Basin was a picture in the sunshine, but the southerly kept me in the Long Room where the main topic of conversation was whether the pies are as good as last year’s.

Wellington were put in. With spring moving into early summer, the pitch was not such a radical shade of green, official rather than provisional, if you will. The movement it provided was not extravagant, but was constant. I have not, for a long time, seen the ball pass the outside edge as often as it did on the first day. It was this that explains the slow scoring, provoking the batsmen into an abundance of caution. The pitch was not particularly slow, with good carry through to the keeper.

Auckland’s left-arm opening bowler Ben Lister was unlucky to take only the wicket of Georgeson. On another day he could have had five or six, but might his response to constantly beating the bat without finding the edge have been to pitch it up a fraction more?

Tom Blundell was, yet again, top scorer. He came in at 102 for four, not a crisis, but the innings was in need of taking more exercise and being put on a better diet. Troy Johnson, with 42, was the only other Wellington batter to get more than 20. Somebody said that Johnson had scratched about and looked out of form, but it takes a decent player to scratch about for three hours.

The wickets were shared around the Auckland attack, including two for off-spinner Will Somerville, who is the Flying Dutchman of New Zealand cricket, doomed to sail the Seven Seas forever and never see home, as a test player at least. All six of his test appearances have been in the heat and dust, and he may get the call to go to Pakistan over the New Year. Look at Somerville and the way the selectors have treated Jeetan and Ajaz Patel over the years and you might conclude that in New Zealand we treat dogs better than we do spinners.

Auckland’s first innings was, in many respects, a copy of Wellington’s. Solia was the dogged presence at the top of the order, and Ben Horne the keeper who bolstered the innings at No 6. But the chorus was more vocal for the visitors, with 44 from George Worker (a member of the Aptly-named XI, along with Boycott and PJ Hacker of Notts, among others) and a tenth-wicket partnership of 55, so though it looked much the same, a lead of 124 was the outcome.

The pace was just as stately. It was as if Derek Shackleton was bowling at one end and Tom Cartwright at the other. It was 1969 all over again, cricket with Nixon in the White House and Harold Wilson in Downing Street. I found it calming.

There was a short flurry of excitement when, after 96 overs Auckland found themselves 44 short of the second bonus point, available for the first 110 overs of the first innings. Horne was provoked into a temporary abandonment of pacifism and 250 was reached in just eight overs, after which tranquillity was restored, with just nine from the next seven overs.

In my absence on the third day, Wellington were shot out for 132, leaving Auckland with just seven for victory. Lister was more successful in locating the edge of the bat, with four wickets, and Somerville took three more.

And that is it for me and the Plunket Shield for this season. Yes, in the equivalent of early May I have seen all the domestic first-class cricket available to me in 2022/23. With two tests at the Basin when the competition resumes next year, Wellington’s home fixtures are all scheduled before Christmas. In fact, with India using the ground for practice ahead of a T20 at the Cake Tin, the fourth (and final) “home” game was in Palmerston North, two-and-a-half hours away and not in Wellington at all. Yet Fitzherbert Park is an appropriate alternative to the Basin in that it is the only other ground I know of on which the prevailing weather is a gale sufficiently strong to gather up small dogs and children and deposit them in neighbouring streets.  

Shorter forms of the game dominate the fixture list for the next couple of months.

 

 

 

Early Adventures in the Plunket Shield 2022

Wellington v Northern Districts, Basin Reserve, 18-21 October 2022

Wellington v Canterbury, Basin Reserve, 26­-28 October 2022

The early-season blogger faces a perennial challenge when reporting the first games at the Basin Reserve: how to convey the sheer greenness of the pitch. Peter Jackson’s movie studios are nearby. Having limbered up on Tolkien, are they applying their CGI artifice to Wellington’s cricket blocks, producing a verdance that nature cannot match?

As we have established before, a surface of that hue is not necessarily as pernicious as it would be in England. Northern Districts made 225 batting first in the season opener, and that was the lowest total of the match. The case for the pitch’s defence became more shaky for the second game, in which Wellington’s aggregate total was their lowest in 116 years of the Plunket Shield. However, their innings were punctuated by Canterbury’s 338 for eight declared, with a century for Tom Latham and a fifty from Henry Nicholls. Throw in Matt Henry’s seven for 44 in the match and it becomes clear that this was a pitch that sorted the wheat from the chaff with considerable efficiency.

I was able to be present for only one session of each match. For the Northern Districts game it was pre-lunch on the fourth day. ND started the day 225 ahead with six wickets remaining, apparently heading for a declaration close to lunchtime, but seamers McPeake and Sneddon expunged all six for just 23, leaving Wellington with a target of 250. It was one of those collapses that give the team that suffers it a greater chance of victory, closing the innings earlier than a more cautious declaration would have dared. This was a whisker from being the case here.

The highlight of both my mornings at the cricket was the batting of Rachin Ravindra. He puts me in mind of the young Ramprakash (though our man is left-handed) for the precocity and fluidity of his shots. Of course, that comparison raises questions about whether the class will translate to the top level. I hope that the national team management desists in using him as a No 7 who can bowl a bit of spin, and waits until he can be given a decent run in the top four. On this morning he hit several sumptuous cover drives before getting out to a legside strangle.

When I left at luncheon (as John Woodcock would say) Wellington were 77 for four, so ND would have considered themselves to be ahead. I caught up with the live stream (a more basic affair than in the UK, with just a single static camera) when Wellington were about 20 short with eight down. That they were this close was down to Tom Blundell, who performed an innings resurrection like those he undertook with Daryl Mitchell during the recent tests in England. Adam Leonard went in a manner similar to Ravindra with six left to get, and it was last man Hartshorn who secured an inside edge to the fine-leg boundary for the winning runs. This was four-day cricket at its best.

There was no such tension when I got to the Basin for the third morning of the match against Canterbury. The weather forecast was for rain in the late afternoon and for much of the following day, so the visitors had declared on the previous evening, setting Wellington a target of 378. They started the day on nine for two.

Again, Ravindra’s batting was worth the trouble of going to the Basin. He hit three offside fours off the otherwise near-unplayable Henry that were Goweresque in their languidity. This time it took a good one to get him, a ball from O’Rourke that rose a little and left him on off stump. With nightwatchman McPeake in support, that wicket did not fall until we were into the second hour, but thereafter only Blundell and the agricultural Newton made double figures. It was all over in time for lunch.

Despite the crushing defeat, Wellington have the same points as Canterbury and the two teams lead the Plunket Shield table after two of the eight games. 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early adventures in the Plunket Shield

As I write in mid-November (roughly the equivalent of mid-May in England), three-quarters of Wellington’s home programme in the Plunket Shield has been completed. The New Zealand domestic schedule is a warning to England as to what may be to come if resistance from county cricket’s defenders is less than staunch.

I could not get to the Basin for any of the opener against Otago, an eight-wicket win for Wellington, but was there on the first and fourth days of a memorable contest between Wellington and Canterbury: Conway’s match.

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 29 October – 1 November 2019

Scorecard

Devon Conway scored more runs here than anyone has done before in one match in New Zealand. He followed an unbeaten 327 in the first innings with 66 in the second to top Bert Sutcliffe’s single-innings 385 for Otago against Canterbury in 1952–3. His 53 boundaries were the most hit by a New Zealander (including aspiring New Zealanders). It was the highest individual score that I have ever watched, though I saw only (only!) the 261 he made on the first day. Conway—an immigrant from South Africa—qualifies for New Zealand in October 2020, so it would be well worth a county making him an offer for next season.

At 20 for three in the twelfth over, such profligate scoring appeared impossible after Wellington had been put in by Canterbury, but this was not an archetypal first-day Basin pitch. All three wickets were down to good bowling. Left-armer Nuttall swung one into Fletcher to have him leg-before, then Matt Henry, in Kent form, combined accuracy, movement with a little lift to account for Colson and Bracewell. However, even at this early stage very few deliveries beat the bat, particularly when Conway was holding it.

Tom Blundell joined Conway to put on 34 for the fourth wicket before being given leg-before to Williams. Blundell could not have advertised more widely his view that the ball had hit the inside edge had he taken a full page in the Dominion Post. He stared at the raised finger with the expression of a Pope whose infallibility is questioned. All the way back to the rooms his head shook from side to side as he examined the offending strip of wood. Had he widened the scope of this inquiry it would have revealed that the bat also had a middle, which, appropriately deployed, would have saved him a lot of trouble.

The umpire involved, Garth Stirrat, has been outed in as a retired porn star, so I’ll leave a space here for the reader to insert their own witticism.

One of the characteristics of a class batsman that Conway has is that watching him gives no inkling that the team may be in trouble, or that batting is anything other than the breeziest of activities. As we were to see, he has shots around the ground, but his go-to area is behind square on the offside. So productive was he in this area that Cole McConchie committed a heresy against the creed of modern captaincy by stationing a third man before lunch on the first day, and followed it with a second a few balls later. Conway reached his 50—out of a total of 72— with the first false shot he played, an edge over the slips.

The Canterbury bowling in the early part of the innings was exemplary, with Henry conceding only 11 off nine overs and Will Williams—a tall right-arm seamer with a bouncy approach—12 off eight. The rest of the Canterbury attack could not maintain the pressure. Left-armer Andrew Hazeldine was sufficiently pacey to have Malcolm Nofal caught at mid on when attempting a pull, but was profligate to the extent of reaching his bowler’s century in his eleventh over, as quickly as I have seen it done. Conway is so adept at telling the good ball from the almost-but-not-quite good ball and steered what he got from Hazeldine through the gaps like a pilot in a busy waterway. He reached his hundred with another rare mishit, a top-edged pull that fell just out of reach of the diving keeper, Fletcher.

Peter Younghusband joined Conway for the sixth-wicket partnership and took the role of defensive support seriously as may be judged by the fact that he did not contribute to the first 33 runs they put on, and was on only 14 when the century partnership was achieved.

There were no nervous 190s for Conway; a four followed at once by a six over deep mid-wicket saw to that. He reached 200 before the team had passed 300, which can’t have happened often.

Those two boundaries came off Todd Astle, who had been held back until Conway was well-established, which suggested a lack of confidence in a bowler who is a semi-regular member of the test squad, but asking a leg spinner to bowl in New Zealand in October is like bringing a bear out of hibernation a couple of months early, to forage with the snow still on the ground.

Younghusband’s blockade was breached by a fine catch by Tom Latham at second slip. He was replaced by Jamie Gibson, who took the opposite approach, striking out from the start. They were both right, in their contrasting ways. By the time Gibson came in, Conway had been batting for most of the day and was happy to let his partner man the guns.

The Canterbury attack operated like two economies, one managed by Margaret Thatcher, the other by Robert Mugabe. Henry and, especially, Williams (one for 52 from 28 overs) held fast against the inflation of batsmen’s scores, while the other bowlers printed runs.

In my absence on the second and third days, Conway reached his triple century and Wellington declared on 525 for seven an hour or so before lunch. Tom Latham then scored his traditional Wellington double hundred (one in the test match against Sri Lanka late last year and one in the Plunket at Karori in 2013). Nobody else reached 50 for Canterbury, who declared nine down 110 behind.

To what Bismarck said of sausages and laws, add the accumulation of runs needed for an agreed target: it is better not to see them being made. I was glad to have missed the first hour or so of the final morning when the formalities necessary for Wellington to set Canterbury 358 were completed.  

That many runs in a day less half an hour is tough even on a pitch that appeared truer than George Washington. But by the time I arrived late in the morning session, pessimism had already set in among the Wellington faithful, in whose company Eeyore would appear a cock-eyed optimist. Canterbury were 80 for one, with one of the world’s top-ten ranked test batsmen (Latham) in and another (Nicholls) to follow.

However, Bowes, who had opened with 40 from 27 deliveries, had already departed and three more followed in the short time before lunch. Stephen Murdoch was out lbw making room to cut a ball from slow left-armer Nofal that was quicker than he thought. The decision looked dubious, though Murdoch was well back in the crease. The scorecard has links to video of all dismissals, so readers can make up their own minds.

The day took a significant turn in Wellington’s direction in the following over when Latham was caught at second slip, driving loosely at van Beek.

The third to fall was McConchie who, mind straying to the impending ham salad, swept the last ball before lunch to be caught at short fine leg. The bowler was again Nofal, who once more put a little extra speed on the ball. Canterbury’s target at the start of the afternoon was 239 with six wickets and a minimum of 62 overs left.

Nofal has taken 15 wickets in the Plunket Shield so far this year, more than anyone except Neil Wagner, so has moved onwards and upwards from the “golden arm” category. Wellington captain Michael Bracewell, however, with three wickets in 78 first-class games, only aspires to that description. But he did get one to turn to Henry Nicholls, who knocked it cross-batted it to mid off. Only the bowler was more surprised than the batsman.

Now Wellington were ahead and expected to win, particularly as Canterbury had a longish tail. There was a time when a team in Canterbury’s situation would have abandoned hopes of victory and set about digging trenches, but the modern cricketer just runs quicker towards the machine guns. This is no criticism. Here, with two or three more lucky breaks, it would have won Canterbury the match, and it was good to watch.

Todd Astle hit 33 from 15 deliveries, including two splendid straight-driven sixes. On only four, Cam Fletcher hit a Rohan Kanhai-style fall-over hooked six off McPeake. Matt Henry struck three sixes as he made 43 from 40, before falling to an excellent catch by Bracewell, low to his left, which is not where a first slip expects to take a catch from a right-handed batsman. Fletcher followed soon after leaving Canterbury with 126 to get with only two wickets left.

Canterbury continued to press on, if a trifle more cautiously than before. Williams and Hazeldine restored Wellington’s anxietyometer to the high levels to which we are accustomed with a ninth-wicket stand of 64 before Hazeldine off drove straight to van Beek at mid off. Still they hit out; the game ended when Nuttall was caught at long on to give Nofal his fourth wicket. Wellington won a splendid game of cricket by 44 runs.

Wellington v Auckland, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 8 – 9 November 2019

Scorecard

The following week we were back at the Basin for the visit of Auckland. I arrived soon after lunch on the first day to discover that I had missed Wellington’s first innings, bowled out for 91 having been put in. Lockie Ferguson took four for 23. After his performances in the World Cup, readers will know that Ferguson is capable of bowling as fast as anybody, but now with added accuracy. He had been withdrawn from the T20 series against England to play here in preparation for a summer of test cricket.   

Soon after I took my seat Auckland’s reply was interrupted by the rain, and there you have the story of the rest of match. There were only 26 more overs that day, and 57 in total in the next. As had been forecast, the third and fourth days were washed away completely, so from the outset this was a game played for the small stakes of bonus points. No point then in recounting events in any detail, save to introduce readers who do not follow domestic cricket in New Zealand with the name of Ben Sears.

Sears is a local 21-year-old all-rounder less than a year into his first-class career. He took six for 43, three of them in the two overs he was able to bowl on the second morning before the rain fell. He bowls right arm on the brisk side of medium with a high action. Test opener Jeet Ravel was bowled by a ball that swung in, and was quick enough to hurry Horne into a head-protecting edge.

Wellington finish the first half of the Plunket Shield season with a comfortable lead of 15 points. Whether anybody remembers that when the competition resumes in late February remains to be seen.

I will next report from Hamilton, where I’m heading at the end of the week for the first three days of the test match.