Arriving at the Basin with the bank already filling I was
taken back to seventies mornings when the smell of bacon frying on campfires in
the car park meant that a big knockout game was on at St Lawrence.
Marketing hyperbole has undermined the language of sport.
Rugby league in this part of the world is particularly keen to pretend that
every game is a final. This match was billed as the preliminary final. But this
was the game to decide who would play in the final, so a semi-final is what it really
was.
With a bit of imagination and a little licence this one
could have been sold as over-35s v under-35s. Wellington had five players in
the former category, plus Woodcock who is only a couple of months short.
Canterbury had only Peter Fulton.
Both sides have had their progress in the competition
aided by being largely untroubled by the selectors. Only Luke Ronchi was
missing on international duty from the Wellington team, and the selectors
thoughtfully allowed Matt Henry to return to the Canterbury team following an
indifferent performance in the T20 against Bangladesh in Napier the previous
evening.
However, Canterbury had three other players who have been
selected for New Zealand in one form or another this season—Henry Nicholls,
Todd Astle and Kent’s Tom Latham—and looked the stronger team on paper.
Not that Latham had much influence on the game; he went
early, lbw to a full toss that was quite the worst ball that Hamish Bennett
bowled in his opening spell. That brought together Henry Nicholls and Chad Bowes
for the best batting of the game, a second-wicket partnership of 69 in nine
overs. Nicholls we know about, but I’d not heard of Bowes before. He’s a member
of the white South African cricketing diaspora, captain of the Proteas under-19
team in 2012. Now he wants to play for New Zealand (which is, at least,
preferable to wanting to play for Hampshire).
Bowes is a proper batsman whose 56 from 41 balls was full
of intelligent orthodox shots. He hit eight fours, three of which were from
successive deliveries from Brent Arnel, an interest-free advance from a payday
loan shark. Nicholls also scored fours from three successive balls, off Luke
Woodcock, though they were his only boundaries. He is a bat-through sort of
batsman, which can be a euphemism for not having that top gear that is needed
to flay a bowler in T20.
When Bowes was out in the 13th over, the score
was 96 for two, so 180-plus was in prospect. But Jeetan Patel had already set
about cutting off the blood supply. At last, Patel is getting the recognition
as a master practitioner at home that he enjoys in England. When he came on the
Canterbury innings was a roaring lion. When he finished, it was tamely eating from
his hand.
Canterbury’s assistant coach Brendon Donkers was on the
radio on the morning of the game saying that T20 was all about boundaries,
there being a strong correlation between hitting the most boundaries and
winning the game. He went as far as to say “forget about the singles”. A truism
perhaps, and a petard to be hoisted by. Patel conceded only one four, a reverse
sweep by Peter Fulton off the fourth ball of his fourth over.
Hamish Bennett was even more miserly, going for just 18
from his four overs with wickets from the last two balls of the innings.
Canterbury’s total of 151 looked at least 15 short of a break-even score.
For many years Hamish Marshall was confused with his
identical twin James. Now he has another doppelganger at the other end in Michael
Papps. Both are short, old (in cricketing terms) and bat pugnaciously with a fusion
of hard-hit conventional shots and new-fangled improvisation. Their fifty
partnership for the first wicket came up from the first ball of the fifth over.
Matt Henry took a particular pounding and may have wished that he had stayed in
the Hawke’s Bay sun.
It seemed like a procession, but as has been related in
these columns often enough, Wellington’s sports teams have a talent for escaping
from match-winning situations that would spring them from Colditz. Here leg-spinner
Todd Astle was the agent of change. He came on as soon as the fielding restrictions
were relaxed and struck immediately taking a hard-hit return catch to get rid
of Marshall.
We had a strong earthquake here in Wellington a couple of
months ago that has led to the demolition of a couple of large buildings and design
faults being exposed in others. Earthquake Astle revealed structural failings
in the Wellington batting. The foundations were shaky and innings began to
suffer from liquefaction. Papps was bowled by a perfect googly and 103 for one
became 110 for five inside three overs.
Astle bowled his spell through, which supports my idea
that sometimes captains meddle too much with the bowling roster in T20. Maybe
he could have been risked during the powerplay.
With better support from the other end Astle would have
won the game, but instead there was a curious effort from off-spinner Tim
Johnston. I have been reading Jon Hotten’s The
Meaning of Cricket, which contains accounts of the yips suffered by various
bowlers, that describing the psychological implosion of Scott Boswell of
Leicestershire in a one-day final at Lord’s being particularly harrowing:
“It took Scott Boswell a
decade to rebuild his relationship with the game that had dominated his life.”
Perhaps because this was fresh in my mind, when Johnston
failed to release the ball in the delivery stride a couple of times, I began to
have my suspicions. He did so again, this time giving Papps a “Mankading”
warning, which I thought might have been a cover story. Then came a slow beamer
to Blundell. The resulting free hit went for six and ultimately made all the
difference. Johnston was taken off after two overs, but surprisingly brought
back later, when it was a choice between him and the out-of-touch Logan van
Beek. The yips were not apparent this time, but a six by Taylor landed on the
roof of the merchandising stall and a quicker delivery resulted in four byes.
The only bowler I have seen have a complete meltdown in
this way was the great Australian quick Graham McKenzie, as unlikely a victim
of the yips as could be imagined. It happened in a Sunday League game at
Folkestone in 1971. McKenzie had bowled three overs with no hint that anything
was awry, but in his fourth started to bowl front foot no-balls—called by his
compatriot Bill Alley—and couldn’t stop, even when he reduced his run-up to
three paces. Maybe the 15-yard restriction on run-ups that applied in the Sunday
League at that time had an effect, but McKenzie’s was an economical approach to
the crease that made it seem unlikely. The over was 14 deliveries long and went
for 31, as many as I have seen come from one over. It was as strange a thing as
I have witnessed as a spectator.
Two more wickets kept the collective blood pressure of
Wellington supporters right up there, and the final over began with five needed
and three wickets standing. Here I draw your attention to my comparison in my
last post of Luke Woodcock to Darren Stevens in terms of reliability and
reassurance. Two cover drives to the boundary off van Beek off the first two
balls of the over and it was done.
Postscript:
The
final took place just two days later, with Wellington travelling to Pukekura
Park, New Plymouth to play Central Districts. I watched on TV. 4,000 were crammed
into the most beautiful cricket ground I know of, spread out across one row of
benches on each level of the grass ziggurats that tower over the ground on
three sides.
Earlier
this season a new world T20 record for a match aggregate was set on the ground,
with CD falling one short of Otago’s 249. A runfest was expected, so when
Wellington found themselves at eight for two, and later 114 for seven, hope had
left the ground. An unbroken partnership of 58 by Taylor and Patel guided
Wellington to the lower foothills of respectability, but a trouncing still
appeared inevitable.
But
by the end of the third over of the CD innings, Mahela Jayawardene and Jesse
Ryder had both gone for ducks and the favourites never got going. Wellington
won by 14 runs, a street in T20 terms.
I
have enjoyed the later stages of the competition more than I thought I would
because it has been less predictable than the shortest form can often be and
there has been some good, thinking cricket. The fact that it is not presented
in the overblown way that the Big Bash is also helps, particularly in the TV
commentary which has been sensible and understated, as is the Kiwi way.
Next,
the first of two test matches at the Basin this season, against Bangladesh.
