Sri Lanka Shivers

 New Zealand v Sri Lanka, ODI, Basin Reserve, 5 January 2025

Scorecard

Mrs Scorecards is in Toronto, Canada on grandma duty. The temperature rarely pokes its head above freezing point there at this time of year. Yesterday, a blanket that she put out to dry moulded itself into the shape of the chair it was placed upon, an instant ice sculpture. Yet, it would be valid to have a conversation about whether it would have been less pleasant watching cricket there or at the Basin Reserve for this ODI. The New Zealand summer, often a hard dog to keep on the porch, has absconded completely over the holiday period. Elsewhere on the North Island there has been fresh snow on both Mt Taranaki and the Desert Road, which should not happen at this time of year. 

Readers concerned for the welfare of My Life in Cricket Scorecards need not be. I was in the safety and warmth of the Long Room, along with all other sensible people. I did not share the view of my Petone and Brooklyn correspondents—the Scott and Oates of the Basin Reserve—that true supporters should put their lives on the line in the cause of sport by facing the southerly in the RA Vance Stand.

Williamson and Conway were both absent from the New Zealand team, giving preference to playing in the South African T20 franchise competition. It might seem odd that New Zealand Cricket is being so indulgent as to permit this, but we do not have the cash in the quantities needed to purchase the exclusivity of all the top players. They have done a good job of ensuring that key players are available for much of the time. Both Williamson and Conway will be available for all New Zealand’s cricket for the rest of this year. Of the other players not on full NZC contracts, only Lockie Ferguson might have been selected if not at the BBL. Tom Latham was injured, so Canterbury’s Mitch Hay took the gloves, and so was one of the few on the field or in the stands to retain feeling in his fingers throughout the game. 

Mitch Santner, now New Zealand’s captain in white-ball cricket, put Sri Lanka in, a decision that paid off to the extent of 23 for four after ten overs. For most of the sixty or so years of the limited-overs era, in this situation  the orthodoxy would have been to treat the innings like a first-class game in the hope that sufficient wickets would remain for a dash at the end. 

Here, the first ball of the eleventh over was pulled to the boundary by Avishka Fernando off Henry, caution excised from cricket’s dictionary. The approach was not reckless, but was underpinned by an acceptance that a gritty score fewer than 200 will not win a one-day game, so a level of risk that kept the boundaries coming was acceptable. 

It seemed to be working, for a time. Fernando and Liyanage put on 87 for the fifth wicket in 15 overs, but the last five wickets could muster only 68 between them, just over half of which came from Hasaranga, the only batter to exceed a run-a-ball strike rate. 

Any template for a report on a New Zealand match might as well include the phrase “Matt Henry bowled superbly”. Here, he finished with four for 19, with a combination of pace, movement and consistently putting the ball where the batter least wanted it. A word in favour too of Duffy and Smith, both of whom had to run into the gale, something that would probably be illegal if you made an animal do it. It is good to see both these players doing well after impressing in domestic cricket over several seasons. 

The New Zealand fielding was good too, which it has not always been in recent times. Of particular note were three catches from skyers, all tricky with the wind blowing the ball about like a leaf in autumn. 

Some of the Sri Lankans would never have experienced cold like they felt at the Basin. The wind made their trousers flap like flags at the top of a hill, and the interval between their hands emerging from pockets before, and being thrust back in after, the bowler delivered had become imperceptible by the end of the match. There was a rare consensus in the body language of fielders, spectators and even umpires that the sooner it was over the better. It pretty soon was, the target of 179 reached in the 27th over.

Will Young opened and batted throughout, finishing with a faultless 90 at a little over a run a ball. It was a reassuring, calming performance, though it reminded us of how much we had missed him at the recent test match against England when he was omitted despite having been player of the victorious series in India. There should be no question about his inclusion in the XI for the Champions Trophy. 

Rachin Ravindra batted like a billionaire, but a generous one who tips extravagantly, as he did when giving a catch to deepish square leg when well set on 45 from 36 balls. On the TV highlights it was said that he timed the ball too well, a problem that only the finest players have.

Mark Chapman accompanied Young to see New Zealand home, and it was hot soup all round to celebrate. 

Both the remaining games in the three-match series were won by wide margins: New Zealand by 113 runs at Seddon Park, and a consolation 140-run victory for Sri Lanka at Eden  Park. It was good to be watching men’s ODI cricket once more, even if there was a feel of a repertory company doing a final tour with the stars already left for Hollywood. 

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. 

Triumphs overseas as the season begins at home

Wellington v Canterbury, Ford Trophy

The first day of the season. A day of optimism and excitement for summer days to come; for the older spectators, of relief at having made it through another winter; and often of hot soup and overcoats. When I was last at the cricket, at St Lawrence in April, there were legs of lamb in the kitchen freezer that were warmer than my Blean correspondent and myself. So it was pleasant to find the Basin Reserve warm and windless, spectators able to sit outside in the RA Vance Stand without a sweater. If there is a better day to watch cricket this side of the New Year, we will be fortunate.

My Petone and Brooklyn correspondents have been occupying the same front row seats on the upper deck of the RA Vance Stand for several decades. We refer to it as the Royal Box. There was a crisis at the Australia test match earlier this year when NZ Cricket reserved the seats for dignitaries, forcing a move further up the stand. 

On the first day of the new season there was a shattering discovery. New sightscreens have been installed at both ends of the Basin. They are wider and, crucially, higher. On days where it is directly in line with the pitch, almost a third of the field is not now visible from the Royal Box. If a really quick bowler operates from the southern end it is possible that the slips would be obscured from view. Nevertheless, I was staggered, on arrival at the next game, to find that my Petone correspondent had moved back to the second row. The most apposite historical analogy that captures the magnitude of this shift that I can think of is Pope Clement V’s moving the papacy from Rome to Avignon in 1309.

 

The cause is the exponential growth of sightscreens through the years. I have been watching highlights of ODIs in Australia in the eighties and was reminded that screens in that era were often little wider than the pitch itself. Now, the screen itself is often merely the centrepiece of an installation that covers whole blocks of seats. Still batters are distracted by movement of flies at the edge of the construction. One day the screens at either end will meet on the mid-wicket boundaries, thus removing the inconvenience of providing accommodation for spectators altogether. 

For the first time in a while the opener was not the Plunket Shield, but the 50-over competition, the first four rounds of which precede the first-class fixtures. Wellington were at home to Canterbury, the reigning champions. 

The pitch was yellow-brown rather than the customary green, but there was a fair bit of early-season movement as Wellington opener Tim Robinson discovered when he edged the second ball of the match to second slip. Greenwood and Johnson put on 58 for the second wicket, but with a caution that suggested that a score of 250 or fewer would be enough. Wellington’s 129, with almost ten overs unused, was certainly not.

The collapse was begun by a splendid tumbling catch at deep mid-off by Canterbury skipper Cole McConchie to get rid of Greenwood. That was the first of a career-best five for 14 for Angus Mackenzie, who is barely on the brisk side of medium pace. It was a reward for competence rather than menace; he will often bowl as well without taking a wicket. Poor shot selection or execution helped him, Nick Kelly’s belated attempt to withdraw his bat from the  first ball he received being a prime example. 

Henry Nicholls was the first Canterbury batter to go, at 44 and the loss of three more for 20 gave Wellington hope, but Chad Bowes and Matthew Boyle took them home in the 23rd over without further loss. This was a circumspect Bowes, 48 from 49 deliveries. Later in the week he made the fastest double hundred in List A history. 

The day got better. Indeed, Sunday 20 October 2024 goes down as one of the most memorable in New Zealand’s cricketing story. The early finish at the Basin allowed us to get home in time for the first ball in Bengaluru, where New Zealand were chasing 107 for their first test victory in India in 36 years. Even more remarkably, this victory was followed by another at Pune that gave New Zealand a first series win in India, the first there by any team for 12 years. 

Then, still on Sunday in Dubai, the New Zealand women won the T20 World Cup by beating South Africa, rather easily, in the final. Both these triumphs were utterly unexpected. We in the south Pacific are all as surprised as everyone else.

The men played two tests at Galle in Sri Lanka a few weeks before going to India. Both were lost, the first honourably, falling 63 short of a target of 275,  the second catastrophically, replying to Sri Lanka’s 602 for five declared with 88 all out. They looked a shambles in the field too, as poor a performance in this respect as I could recall. 

Three weeks later they bowled India out for 46 in the first innings and won by eight wickets. How could this be? There was a change of captain. Tim Southee never looked at ease in the role, and has increasingly questionable value as a bowler. Tom Latham, effectively sacked when Kane Williamson stepped aside, given that he had led the team as much as Williamson in the previous two years or so, becomes the official skipper. Selecting the best bowler helps. Matt Henry was mysteriously omitted in Sri Lanka. He took eight wickets in Bengaluru. 

Henry was injured for the second test, where we expected India to put the world back on its axis on a pitch expected to turn like a cornered cat. It did, and Mitch Santner took 13 wickets to win the game. Santner has become one of the foremost slow bowlers in shorter forms, but that is how he has been best described; a slow bowler, not a spinner. Now he was Hedley Verity reinvented. An explanation is beyond me. I just delight in the cricket of it. 

The World Cup win was every bit as unexpected as the strange events in India. The White Ferns (ironically named given that they have not played a test match since 2003) had lost ten T20 internationals on the trot before the competition, all to either England or Australia. None of those games were close. Before that there was a series loss at home to Pakistan, a team years behind New Zealand in terms of coaching and finance. 

In the World Cup, they lost a group game to Australia, but were otherwise untroubled. Both nemeses, Australia and England, carelessly allowed themselves to be eliminated before facing the Kiwis in the knock-out stage, which helped.

What both unexpected triumphs had in common was the excellence of a Wellington player at their centre. I have been lauding Rachin Ravindra and Amelia Kerr since they first appeared for Wellington. In both cases, it took no special insight to discern their class. Ravindra had so much time, and Kerr astonishing control mixed with the ability to turn the ball both ways. Here, she was the leading wicket taker, made runs when they were most needed and was player of the tournament by a distance. Ravindra’s first innings 139 had the commentators in ecstasy at its class. In the second, he made batting look easy, when it had appeared anything but. One of cricket’s delights is spotting a good one early and watching them grow. 

It has been almost six months since I last posted, as long an interval as there has been since My Life in Cricket Scorecards was inaugurated in 2009. This was mainly a question of time. I have chosen to interpret the turfing out of the Labour Government here in New Zealand at last October’s election as the voters expressing a wish that I spend more time at the Basin Reserve, and have reduced my hours working in Parliament, creating a bit of space for writing, so more soon, hopefully.

Retirement and age mean that, despite having not lived there since 1997, I have to deal with officialdom in the UK. How you people over there get anything done, I just don’t know. I received a letter from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs telling me that I was due a refund on tax paid on my UK teacher’s pension, and that a cheque would arrive soon. 

I can tell that you have questions. In answer to that of younger readers, a cheque is how they paid for things in black-and-white films. And to the next, no, I don’t understand why they didn’t put the cheque in that envelope, rather than in another one two weeks later either. The currency, you ask? UK Sterling, making it unbankable in New Zealand. I could have asked that the money be paid direct into a UK bank account by stating as much on my tax return, had I been required to make one, which I was not. And I couldn’t use the website as I don’t have a UK postcode, so it wouldn’t let me register. I have a mental picture of HMRC officials wearing frock coats and sitting on high stools, quills in hand.

HSBC were easier to contact and much more helpful, but couldn’t accept a scanned copy of the cheque, so instructed that I should send it to them, with a paying-in slip, which they would send me, given that I had remissfully not equipped myself with one, not having paid a cheque into a UK account in the current millennium. Thus, in the era of AI, two bits of paper made their way halfway across the world, and back again. By the way, there is no windfall here. My role is merely that of intermediary between the tax authorities of both countries.

I have to say, as an infrequent visitor, that life in the UK seems, in most respects, to be a bit more complicated than it needs to be. When I was planning a day at Lord’s in May, I discovered the 21 steps that the Middlesex website makes the potential spectator go through to purchase a ticket. It was something of a relief that it rained. 

New Zealand v Australia, first test, Basin Reserve, 29 February – 3 March 2024

Scorecard

Spare a thought for Jeetan Patel, watching this test match in a hotel room in India, where he was as England’s spin bowling coach. There was every indication that this was his old stomping ground of the Basin Reserve, with a pitch that was Shrek–green at the toss and spectators huddling together against the southerly. But it couldn’t be. To prosper In two decades as Wellington’s lead spinner at the Basin, Jeets had to learn flight, variation in pace, clever angles, any trick at all, because the ball would not deviate. Here it turned like cream in the desert, even when propelled by an ex-wicketkeeper.

Think also of Ajaz Patel, the Flying Dutchman of New Zealand cricket, condemned to sail the seven spinning seas without ever making it home. This pitch was made for him. People who have been watching at the Basin for many more years than my 18 had never seen the like. None of this was apparent to anybody at the start of the game. New Zealand left out Santner and put Australia in. It was all quicker bowling until Ravindra was given a go before the new ball was due and immediately got one to straighten past Cummins’ outside edge.

I missed the first two sessions but was there for the rest of the game. When I arrived at tea the locals were reasonably content with 147 for four, all the more so with 279 for nine at the close, the acceleration down to Cameron Green, who moved from 50 to 100 in 46 balls while the wickets kept falling at the other end.

Green came into the Australian side in 2020, talked up as the next big thing, particularly by the Fox commentators, in full cheerleading mode. The delivery remained short of the promise, and he was dropped during last year’s Ashes in favour of the more rustic-but-reliable skills of Mitch Marsh. David Warner’s retirement gave him a way back, though at the cost of booting Steve Smith up to the top of the order, a project that is not going well.

So we started the second morning more optimistically than we had expected. Once the formality of dismissing Australia for under 300 had been attended to, the work of matching, or even surpassing that total would begin. What fools we were.

The pre-lunch session was excruciating, and ended only in the extra time that is statutory when nine wickets are down. Green and Josh Hazlewood put on 116 for the tenth wicket, two runs more than the McGrath/Gillespie stand at Brisbane in 2004 that many Kiwi fans mark as a nadir of our fortunes, the image of Gillespie leaving the field riding his bat like a horse being engraved into our subconscious. At least Green is a proper batter who had a century on the board at the start of the partnership. He is, however, a notoriously poor starter, so putting a bit of pressure on for the first few overs of the new day seemed the obvious move. Instead, New Zealand focused entirely on getting Green off strike and Hazlewood on. Why, when there is one wicket to take to end the innings, captains give up trying to get one of the batters out, remains a mystery, all the more so when Southee maintained the strategy even as Hazlewood unleashed cover drives of Goweresque languidity.

The New Zealand cricketing psyche is a delicate thing when it sees baggy green caps on the same field. The cautious optimism that it had taken all the first day to nurture was shrivelling by the drinks break and dead by lunch. It was a comfort to us up in the RA Vance Stand that one of our group is a psychiatrist. Had he brought a portable couch with him, he could have made a mint.

Latham was the first to go, indecisive to a testing line just outside off by Starc, playing on. Two balls later, Williamson pushed to mid off and set off for a slightly risky single. One day, when gravity messes up and the moon crashes into Earth, those of us there at the Basin that afternoon will be reminded of the way in which Williamson and Young were drawn inevitably together in mid-pitch collision, leaving the former short as Labuschagne swooped in with a direct hit at the bowler’s end.

Three balls later, Ravindra drove at Hazlewood but did not get over the top of it and was caught by Lyon just backward of square on the offside. Whenever a batter under the age of 26 or so gets out in such a fashion early in their innings words like “impetuous” and “hot-headed” are bandied about, but the shot was a good response to the ball, but them went slightly wrong in the execution.

Up in the in the RA Vance we always note the passing of New Zealand’s all-time low of 26, but today did so with more-than-usual relief (we are not a cheery crew). But it was a grind. Mitchell went for 11 in 37 balls. Next ball, Young followed for a 50-ball nine. Twenty-nine for five.

Tom Blundell has mounted so many rescue missions for New Zealand that one expects him to be winched down from a helicopter at the start of his innings. He did it again here, in the company of Glenn Phillips. Before the match there was a discussion on the radio about whether Phillips or Young should take the last place in the New Zealand XI (as it turned out, the injury to Conway meant that both played). The expert vote went for Young because of his superior technique, but I would favour Phillips because of his obvious relish for the tussle. The kryptonite of the baggy green has no effect on him. He went on the attack, but judiciously so. His first six scoring shots were all fours, and all around the ground. Blundell matched him, and the 50 partnership came up in 48 balls.

Nathan Lyon now entered the attack. Phillips took him for three boundaries in his first two overs, but in his third over Lyon deceived Blundell coming down the pitch, resulting in a straightforward bat-pad catch. Two balls later, Kuggeleijn was caught on the legside boundary from a witless slog. Kuggeleijn should not be in the New Zealand team. First, he isn’t good enough. Geoff Lemon and Daisy Cutter explain the other reason.

The second and fourth balls that Matt Henry received from Lyon both went over the legside boundary for six. He made 27 of the eighth-wicket stand of 48, which ended when Phillips was caught at deep-square leg off Hazlewood. Southee copped the third duck of the innings, bamboozled by Lyon. Henry’s final flourish was 15 of four balls from Hazlewood before New Zealand were all out for 179.

The grim fact is that in the last four tests between these teams, the only time that New Zealand have avoided the follow on was in the final test in 2020, when five runs that Australia were penalised for running on the protected area of the pitch in the second innings saved it retrospectively.

Though the result of this match camouflaged it effectively, Australia have problems with their batting. It has a vulnerability to it that was absent a year or so ago. Moving Steve Smith to the top of the order has not yet paid off. Here, he played on to Southee for a duck from the third ball of the innings. The New Zealand captain also got Labuschagne with a legside strangle before the close of the second day, but the three fours from three balls that nightwatchman Lyon dispatched off him the following morning were a more accurate measure of his current form. I am always reluctant to write off quick bowlers since telling people that Willis was obviously done and should be dropped the week before Headingley ’81. But it does appear that a fine career is at its dusk, if not a little later.

At 81 for three it appeared that Australia were on the way to a big lead. Enter Glenn Phillips, New Zealand’s second choice part-time spinner after Ravindra, a bowler who has taken under one wicket a game in his first-class career, in the first part of which his second string was keeping wicket.

In his fourth over Phillips tossed one up well outside off—let’s say deliberately—and Khawaja came down the pitch to it, only for the ball to turn for Blundell to make an excellent stumping. Listen carefully, and you could hear the sound of a tea cup crashing to the floor in India.

After lunch, Phillips took the next four. Travis Head holed out at long off, Marsh was caught at short leg first ball, Carey drove a tempter outside off—let’s say it was deliberate—to short cover, and Green went to a bat-pad catch. Thus Phillips had his first five-for in any form of the game, and his test bowling average is half his first-class average. He makes things happen, and his celebrations (those of a six-year-old according to Phillips himself) became more exuberant with each victim. It would have been six had Cummins not been dropped twice in the deep. Matt Henry finished the innings off.

New Zealand’s target was 389 (273 without that tenth-wicket partnership). Frankly, there was never a chance. But many of us had been there a year before to see a triumph against England in the face of no lesser odds. It’s the hope that keeps you going, hope that was by no means extinguished when New Zealand finished the third day on 111 for three.

Ravindra had batted beautifully, reaching his fifty just before the close. It was better value than his double hundred against the own-brand South Africans a few weeks before. Now he was looking comfortable against the best attack in the world. He was shortly to be named New Zealand’s Player of the Year. Those of us who have been watching him for the last five years or so now share him with the world. Ravindra was well supported by Daryl Mitchell.

It was less surprising that the fourth day should be Nathan Lyon’s, than that the third belonged to Phillips. He had dismissed Latham and Williamson the previous evening. In the seventh over of the morning, he snuffed out the hope. He packed the field square on the offside, then dropped one short to Ravindra—this one we can say with some certainty was deliberate—but it was not quite what it seemed, the shot was marginally mistimed and the catch taken.

The rest was a procession, and we were done by lunchtime, only Mitchell resisting until he was caught and bowled by Hazlewood to finish the game. Lyon finished with ten, just as he did when I watched the previous test between the two sides, at Sydney in January 2020. By the end of the series, he had 530 test wickets, and until his injury at Lord’s last year had played 100 consecutive tests, which he would not have done had he been from England or New Zealand. The Australians do not look at the pitch and ask “do we need a spinner?”; their question is “who are our four best bowlers?”. A few weeks later, I shared the frustration of supporters in Somerset and elsewhere when Shoaib Bashir was left out of the first Championship game of the season in favour of a sixth dobbing seamer. Of course, allowing pitches to turn without the ECB reaching for the smelling salts and the points deductions would help.

The Basin continued to embrace its new status as a spinner’s paradise with a convert’s enthusiasm. In the Plunket Shield against Otago a couple of weeks later, 21 of the 30 wickets fell to spinners including eight for 41 for Michael Bracewell, another ex-keeper. We learned that Bruce Edgar, the former New Zealand opener who is Wellington’s director of cricket, did indeed receive a message from Jeetan Patel asking what the hell was going on.

Christmas Eve at the Cricket

Wellington v Otago

Women

Men

Until the 1970s, provincial cricket was played on Christmas Day in New Zealand. There would be a late start to allow for the hasty opening of presents and the bolting down of some turkey, but the afternoon could be spent on the bank at the Basin, Lancaster Park or Carisbrook. Perhaps it is as well that the practice was abandoned; the ensuing negotiations would be tricky in many households.

In Wellington we have the pleasing new tradition (this is its third year, so “tradition” passes, just) of Christmas Eve cricket, a T20 double-header, to be precise.

All fixtures in New Zealand’s domestic T20 competition—not merely the “Smash” but the “Super Smash”—pair a women’s game with that of the same men’s teams, the women usually (but not always) playing first. All games are shown on television, with 18 of the men’s games and 15 of the women’s free-to-air (with the imminent closure of rights-holders Spark Sport, from next season all domestic and international cricket in New Zealand will be free-to-air for three seasons).

The Basin is at its best at this time of year. The cricket-ball red flowers of the puhutukawa trees bloom for Christmas, draping a crimson ribbon round the ground and up the hill to Government House. The bank was near-full, with an increasing number of spectators arriving in time to take in most of the women’s game. Despite the presence of Billy Bowden, Rain-deviner-in-chief, the sun was out, and all was right with the world.

Otago will look back at both games with the ruefulness of a child who wakes up on Christmas Day to find that Santa has stolen their presents from under the tree. They could and should have won them both.

When both Kerr sisters were out with the score on 110 in the 17th over it seemed that Wellington would be some way short of setting a challenging target, but Maddy Green and Leigh Kasperek took 31 from the final two overs to finish the innings on 146 for five, very attainable with Suzie Bates opening for Otago.

With Ebrahim, Bates put on 49 for the third wicket, but five was the most scored from any over between the third and the ninth, which left an asking rate of almost ten an over, unsustainable against an attack of the quality of Wellington’s. The innings subsided like a sherry-filled grandma into an armchair after the Christmas pudding. Wellington won by 19 runs. Kasperek was the best bowler with three for 16. Her omission from New Zealand’s World Cup squad last year remains mystifying.

For the men, Adam Milne made his Wellington debut, after 12 years with Central Districts. As Kent fans know, Milne is a quality bowler who offers a desirable combination of pace and smarts, so the Basin faithful were pleased to hear that he was coming to the capital. However, some of us were sceptical that we would ever see him in a Wellington shirt on the field of play, given that he is a regular in the white-ball national squad, in demand from the franchises, and more prone to breakage than a Chinese vase in a situation comedy. Yet here he was.

The match followed the pattern of that of the women. Wellington batted first and reached an underwhelming 152. It was only thanks to Rachin Ravindra that it was that many. Regular readers may be rather bored by my regular extolling of Ravindra’s qualities and class, but I can merely report what I see. Here, once more, time appeared to move more slowly when he was at the crease, such was the facility of his shots.

A team chasing a modest total and that is 80 for one after 12 overs, as Otago were, should not lose. But they blew it. Run rates that were unimaginable twenty years ago are now commonplace. Ten an over is the new six an over. But this is not an entitlement, as Otago demonstrated here. They were complacent, expecting to go up through the gears as they wanted. When 29 came from overs 17 and 18 they would have considered themselves on track, but no further boundaries ensued and they lost by eight runs. They had the chance to secure the game earlier and should have taken it.

 

 

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. 

The 2021/22 Season in New Zealand So Far

The 2021/2 Plunket Shield began with the unexpected but glorious distinction of being the domestic first-class competition of the World Test Match Champions. As the world’s cricketing media sought to account for this unlikely turn of events, the strength of New Zealand’s domestic game was cited by many as a significant factor, particularly the pitches that are, we learn from the overseas press, balanced perfectly between bat and ball.

Well, I’m as surprised as you are. We devotees of the Plunket Shield (we are a select band) are puzzled that a competition consisting (in normal times)  of eight matches a team (not enough for a double round-robin), played in the season’s dawn and dusk, should have propelled us to the summit. It is like finding that your loved but unexceptional child Wolfgang Amadeus is a fair piano player. I should not be surprised. Almost everything that I read about New Zealand in the foreign media is wildly inaccurate. 

But the Plunket Shield is still something to be treasured, especially in these times. This season started with only four of New Zealand’s six cricketing provinces able to participate, Auckland and the bigger part of Northern Districts being in lockdown. 

In the Basin Reserve’s Long Room we were all masked, even though Wellington remained Covid-free. I am astonished, when I look at sports fixtures elsewhere in the world, that hardly anybody is wearing a mask. How have those who find a small square of cloth such a challenge coped all these years with trousers, not to mention the myriad challenges that  underwear brings? New Zealanders, much more than most people, believe that the common good is a common responsibility. As I write, fifty people have died from COVID-19 in New Zealand since the whole thing kicked off (which does not stop people in places with thousands and thousands dead telling us how we are getting it wrong).

Wellington v Otago, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 23-26 October 2021

The Basin Reserve will be hosting international cricket when the Plunket Shield concludes next February and March, so Wellington’s four home games were done with by mid-November. So this account represents not just the start, but also the totality of my domestic first-class spectating for this season. 

Wellington were without Jimmy Neesham and Devon Conway, both at the T20 World Cup. Hamish Bennett has given up red-ball cricket so as to extend his career in the national limited-overs teams. Wellington will miss him, but have found a replacement in Nathan Smith, a 23-year-old all-rounder who has represented the national Under-19 and A sides. Smith made a fine start against his old team, trapping Hamish Rutherford lbw with his second ball. Rutherford offered no shot. As ever I invoked the words that the great Arthur Jepson would deliver as he raised the finger in such circumstances: “there’s a reason why tha’s got a bat in thy ‘and lad”.

Smith continued to impress, with two more wickets in the first innings and six in the second. He is skiddy and slippery, at a decent pace too. 

Wickets fell regularly. The biggest partnership of the innings was 49 for the seventh wicket. This naturally raises the question of the pitch, which was the Basin’s traditional first-day green, but with a yellow tinge down the middle, as if to profess its love for Norwich City. Otago’s 207 was the highest total of the match, the difference between that and the lowest being only 27, so the pitch was at least consistent in its capriciousness, which was no more than might be expected of the early season in a temperate climate. 

This being the context, a target of 193 was an anxious one for the home supporters, the more so when Rachin Ravindra went off holding his arm gingerly, having been hit. He missed a good deal of last season with a shoulder injury so we feared a repeat. Happily no damage was done, and has since made his test debut in the two tests in India, saving New Zealand from defeat in the first test by blocking for the last 90 minutes of the match and taking the catch that completed Ajaz Patel’s miraculous ten-wicket haul in the second. Regular readers will know that I have been tipping Ravindra for success for a while, though that requires no more insight than predicting that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. Now we know that he has the temperament as well as the talent.

The most memorable moment of the match was Luke Georgeson’s catch at third man off Rutherford’s ramped cut in the second innings. The ball went towards the boundary in a flat arc. Georgeson had to make a fair distance backwards before diving to take a one-handed, over-the-shoulder catch, always aware of the proximity of the boundary. This initiated a discussion among the stalwarts of the Long Room about the best catch seen at the Basin. The consensus was for  Mayu Pasupati’s full-length dive in the 50-over final in 2000, though Trent Boult has multiple entries in for consideration, as CricInfo has recorded. Georgeson’s was at least the equal of any of them. 

Rutherford was seventh out, having raised then dashed my hopes of seeing an opener carrying his bat through a first-class innings. A man needs an ambition in his declining years. 

Throughout the game in the Long Room there was an empty chair with a reserved sign on it in the name of Fred Goodall, New Zealand’s most famous pre-Bowden umpire, mostly for being body checked by Colin Croft. Fred had passed away a week or so before. He was a regular attender right up to the end of last season, despite declining health. On the first morning, Otago’s top three were all out leg-before, as fitting a tribute to Fred as could be. 

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 31 October-3 November 2021

This fixture was scheduled to be against the quarantined Northern Districts, so Canterbury, unable to host Auckland, filled in, so we had successive first-class matches between the same teams on the same ground. Canterbury won both resoundingly, their Shield-winning form continuing from last season. 

Five wickets fell in the first session after Canterbury were put in by Michael Bracewell, and it seemed that we were in for a repeat of the moderate scores of the Otago game. But none followed between lunch and tea as Canterbury took control. It was a match in which class told, first in the form of Henry Nicholls, who made 97 while he second-highest score from either top six in the first innings was 26. Nicholls is Mr Imperturbable, unfazed by what is happening at the other end or by any ball except the one he is about to face. 

There was a strong performance from the bottom half of the Canterbury order, most notably from keeper Cam Fletcher, who made 110. Fletcher kept beautifully too, standing up impeccably to the sharp medium pace of Will Williams. Tom Blundell played here before heading off to India as successor to BJ Watling as the national team’s custodian (a term worthy of rehabilitation). During this first phase of the Plunket Shield I also saw Max Chu of Otago (another recent centurion) and Wellington’s reserve Callum McLachlan. Of the four, Blundell was the least impressive with the gloves. He will need to improve, or score a stack of runs, or both to keep his place. 

A lead of 218 was not enough to tempt Canterbury to enforce the follow on. Instead, Tom Latham’s unbeaten 127 was the innings of the season so far, and gave context to the challenges that the pitch presented to those of lesser ability. Ravindra’s second-innings 70 approached its quality, and constituted not far off half of Wellington’s second innings.

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 7-9 November 2021

An hour or so into the first day, most of the players on the field dived to the ground and lay flat, reminiscent of that photo of Lord’s during World War Two when a doodlebug cut out above them. Here, it was bees. There was a story on the radio the other day about the tradition of telling bees the news. PL Travers wrote about her aunt doing this. “ ‘I have to tell you,’ she said, formally, ‘that King George V is dead. You may be sorry, but I am not. He was not an interesting man.’ ” I’m sure that the bees were interested in the state of the Basin Reserve pitch. Someone should have faced them and said “Bees, it’s another one in which you could hide an emerald in plain sight, but batting of quality can still produce runs, and that will decide the game”.

I was present only for the first day of this one, but, in terms of wickets down  that constituted almost half the match. With the test players gone, it was Canterbury’s opener Ken McClure who stepped up, with 130, four fewer than Wellington managed in their first innings, and 15 more than their second. 

The fourth match of the series, against Central Districts, was during the working week, so I didn’t get to any of it. For the first time this season Wellington scaled the heady heights of 200, and in both innings, but Central’s first-innings lead of 120 was the foundation of a seven-wicket victory. 

Wellington v Otago, 50 overs, Basin Reserve, 1 December 2021

It was something of a relief for us Wellington folk to send the Plunket Shield into summer hibernation and to turn to the shorter forms. The 50-over Ford Trophy began with another visit from Otago, who put Wellington in. This year the longer shorter form is mixed in with the T20, As every match in the latter is on TV, they have first call on the pitches in the centre of the block, so as to be aligned with the camera towers. Thus the Ford Trophy finds itself in the cheap seats at the edge, where the pitches have a shifty countenance, coloured like a damaged car with a hasty respray. This is no bad thing as it produces a balance between bat and ball and a fuller test of skills that is much preferable to a 370 v 370 slugfest. This game was a fine example. 

Here, Wellington reached 255, more than looked likely for much of the innings, thanks to some effective hitting from Nathan Smith in the final overs. Otago’s slow bowlers were their most effective. Left-arm wrist spinner Michael Rippon took four for 41 while Anaru Kitchen conceded only 26 from his ten overs. 

So Michael Bracewell’s early exit from the field after a blow on the fingers seemed decisive, depriving Wellington of ten overs of slow stuff (a better representation of Bracewell’s oeuvre than “spin”). Bracewell returned to the field periodically, unsuccessfully trying to persuade the umpires that the binding on his hand would not assist his bowling, the cricketing equivalent of claiming that the Norwegian Blue remained sentient. 

For the greater part of their innings it seemed that Otago were coasting it, led by Neil Broom’s 72. Broom has reached that stage when people ask if the Broom playing today is the son, or maybe grandson, of the former Otago player Neil Broom, but it is still the original, accumulating away in the cause of the South. When he was fifth out Otago had to score 54 to win in ten overs. As so often, it was a run out that undid them, as Rippon sold non-striker Kitchen a dummy of which any Otago outside half might have been proud. Jakob Bhula, slow bowling stand-in for Bracewell, did a fine job in the final phase with five overs for just 19 as Wellington picked the match from Otago’s pocket. 

Wellington v Otago, 50 overs, Basin Reserve, 21 December 2021

The Ford Trophy has a veneer of equity about it, with each province playing all the others twice. However, eccentricity lies underneath. In each pair of fixtures, the same side is at home for both games. This is supposed to be cost-saving, with two matches in three days. Three weeks separated the two fixtures between Wellington and Otago, yet  the southerners were asked to make the long journey to the capital once more, when a reversal of venues would have meant that each team played five at home and five away. 

It was an enjoyable day in the sun, without there being much of note to report. Wellington made 333 with solid contributions from most of the batters led by the increasingly impressive Troy Johnson with 88. Otago lost wickets regularly and soon fell irredeemably behind the required rate. I left early, something I rarely do out of fear of missing the extraordinary, but nothing of that nature occurred in my absence. 

To finish this round up of the first half of the season, four T20 games.

Wellington v Central Districts, T20, Basin Reserve, 5 December 2021 Women Men 

Wellington v Canterbury, T20, Basin Reserve, 19 December 2021

Women Men  

New Zealand Cricket continues its admirable policy of making every match day a double header, with a women’s and a men’s game. The inclusion of the women widens considerably the range of approaches and skills to be seen, a pleasing degree of aestheticism replacing an over-reliance on power.

Regular readers will know that, for several seasons now, Amelia Kerr’s legspin bowling has been one of the great pleasures of my cricket watching. To this she has added consistent and heavy scoring. Her lowest score in the five games so far is 42, the only time she has fallen short of a half century, which goes some way to explaining why Wellington are the only team with an unbeaten record at the halfway stage. 

The same cannot be said for the men. The chances of a home final as top-placed team in the round robin are remote, with just two wins from five. 

We begin 2022 with a 50-over game on New Year’s Day; I can’t think of a better way.