New Zealand defeat the West Indies at the Basin Reserve

 New Zealand v West Indies, Second Test, Basin Reserve, 11–14 December 2020

Scorecard

As the West Indian fielders and the New Zealand openers took their positions for the first ball on the first day of this test match, they went down on one knee to affirm the universal truth that black lives matter. There had been no announcement of this beforehand so it took us by surprise. There was silence for a few seconds, then I and others started applauding, soon to be joined by a good proportion of the crowd. It was an emotional moment on a sunny morning with the red blooms of the pohutukawas leaking across the Basin’s panorama. Added to the privilege that we in New Zealand feel at simply being able to go to the cricket  was my personal reflection on the debt I have to West Indian cricketers. They were my Jesuits, capturing me at my most impressionable, inculcating me with an unshakeable faith in the passion and excitement of cricket to a degree that English cricket’s abstaining methodism of that time could not inspire. 

Regular readers will know that finding new ways of conveying the deep verdancy of New Zealand cricket pitches has proved a challenge to Scorecards over the years. The strip at Hamilton for the first test attracted a lot of social-media attention from the UK, mostly from people to whom it did not occur that the parameters of pitch behaviour 12,000 miles away might vary from those at the club down the road (the more strident the opinion about New Zealand, the less likely it is that the perpetrator has been here, or can locate the country on a map). The occasions on which these pitches produce the amount of assistance to the bowlers that their appearance might conventionally suggest are greatly outnumbered by those on which they do not. The score at the end of that first day at Seddon Park was 243 for two. Discussing this issue the other day, the TV commentators suggested that the green grass here might be so dense that the main effect is to cushion the ball. 

At the Basin, the first-morning pitch was about an eight on the international scale of greenness, and three-and-a-half measured domestically, still enough for Jason Holder to put New Zealand in upon winning the toss. Tom Latham was captain, as he was the last time Scorecards reported on the national team, in Sydney at the start of the year. This time, Kane Williamson’s absence was down to the impending arrival of his daughter. 

The sun had a ticket, but the wind is a life member at the Basin, and registered its presence by removing a bail at each end after the first ball of the match. The gale seemed to blow Shannon Gabriel off course. His first two overs went for 21, the ball pitched up too far with no consistent line. 

Gabriel adjusted to the conditions with the alacrity of an America’s Cup skipper. In his next 12 overs he took three for 17. The first of the three was Tom Blundell, the ball after he had cover driven a four. The next one came back just enough to find the gap between bat and pad and to hit the top of the off stump. Gabriel bowled with the wind, but that meant that he had to walk back to his mark into it, which he achieved at a speed of a retreating glacier. 

Showing himself to be an over-the-top-into-the guns sort of leader, Jason Holder opened the bowling into the wind. His opening spell was tight, but the first wicket from that southern end was taken by his namesake, Chemar Holder, at whom Latham drove to provide a first test dismissal not only for the bowler but also for replacement keeper Da Silva, in for the injured Dowrich.

Regular readers might expect that Devon Conway would have come in at No 3, so often has Scorecards extolled his credentials as an international batsman in the four years since he started playing for Wellington and qualifying for New Zealand. Despite Conway’s impressive start in the T20 side, Will Young of Central Districts got the call in this series. Young was close to selection for some time before making his debut in the first test. He was down to play in the Christchurch test against Bangladesh that was cancelled following the terrorist attack on the mosques in that city in 2019. He has a first-class average of 43, just four fewer than Conway. 

Ross Taylor was Gabriel’s second victim with another ball that straightened a little to provide a second catch to Da Silva. This brought in Henry Nicholls, another feeling the breath of Conway on his collar. It is a sign of the current health of New Zealand cricket that Nicholls’ current test average of 41 did not guarantee him a place for the rest of the season when not so long ago it would have done so for several summers. He and his fourth-wicket partner Young knew that a substantial innings by one would mean the other making way for Williamson on his return on Boxing Day against Pakistan.   

Young fell for 40 to a stunning diving catch by the captain at second slip (it was a surprise not to see Holder driving the team bus at the end of the day such had been his ubiquity in other roles). Nicholls finished with 174, but was missed four times, including two straightforward slip chances, and had edges go into gaps on any number of occasions. He showed great mental strength not to be undermined by his good fortune, but Young might be forgiven for shaking his fist at the fates. 

BJ Watling played an uncharacteristic innings that ended in an uncharacteristic way. Big shots replaced little nudges: 24 of his 30 runs came from boundaries.  He played on attempting to cut a ball that did not have the necessary width. 

Daryl Mitchell looked as comfortable as anybody and accompanied Nicholls to his century, achieved appropriately with an inside edge. It was the hundredth test century at the Basin, and one of the ropiest, not that Nicholls will care. New Zealand finished the day on 294 for six, much better than it would have been with average test-match catching.

The southerly always keeps its diary free for some of the Basin test, and was there for the second day, but without its usual icy venom. The Wellington summer wardrobe of two sweaters was sufficient.

The highlight of the first half of the day was Neil Wagner’s innings at eighth down. Wagner bats as he bowls, like a man writing an angry letter to the editor, in green ink with much underlining. After five balls to gain a sighter, he began with a little light legside slogging off Holder, then top-edged a six off Joseph, who was beginning to look a bit of a spare part, as Josephs will at this time of the year. 

Our hero was dropped twice at fine leg in three balls, neither easy, but both catchable. The joke du jour was that it had been a waste of money putting the West Indians in quarantine for a fortnight as they can’t catch anything. With a combination of the classical and the grotesque, the 50 partnership, 39 from Wagner, came up in 30 balls. In his 50th test, Wagner’s first test 50 was now close, but he had to wait until after lunch to push for two past point to get there. How we roared. There is no more popular cricketer in New Zealand than Wagner, for his enthusiasm, dedication and unkiwilike bad temper. He is Monty Python’s Black Knight made flesh. In the Boxing Day test a couple of weeks later he bowled 28 overs in the second innings with two broken toes. Here, Wagner marked the landmark by unrolling a cover drive of which Frank Woolley would have been proud. 

When Nicholls’ marathon ended, Wagner was joined by Trent Boult, the only batsman by comparison to whom he appears measured and orthodox. Anyone who has not seen Boult bat need only read some of Hardy’s descriptions of the bucolic folk of Wessex scything hay in the fields to get the flavour. He was off the mark first ball with a six over wide long on.

The innings finished two balls later at 460, Wagner unbeaten on 66. This was at least 200 more than the fielding should have allowed. 

West Indies had not taken a single step towards that total when Southee got one to hold its line close enough to off stump to force Brathwaite to edge to Watling. Along with Boult, Southee controlled and threatened throughout the opening spell. The inevitable second wicket came when Bravo did not go through with a drive, giving Southee an athletic return catch. Bravo’s departure from the field was Brexit slow.

These days, the New Zealand attack is no longer what Graham Gooch described as the World XI at one end and Ilford Seconds at the other. After Boult and Southee there was Wagner, who had got himself into a state about the price of fish, or global warming, or something, and was working it out with red-ball therapy. Then there was Kyle Jamieson, whose first over was one of the most memorable bowled in tests at the Basin.

Jamieson has made a dazzling start to his international career this year, having been on the domestic scene since 2014. He is 26, and it is hard to explain why he has suddenly become such a force. There was never a chorus of calls for him to be picked before he was. Yet here he is, with batting and bowling averages of 49 and 14 after five tests.

He came on, into the wind, for the 15th over. The first ball brought appeals from the slips, but not the bowler, for caught behind, but it had flicked the pad. Jamieson joined in the appeal for lbw from the second ball, but Latham did not review, rightly as there was an inside edge. Campbell drove at the third, full on off stump, and was caught behind. Chase’s first ball was an inswinging yorker that bowled him. 

The hattrick ball got the RA Vance Stand to its feet, as it clattered into Jermaine Blackwood’s pad, but the review showed that it was missing leg. The final ball was closer, again spearing into the back pad. It was turned down on review on the umpire’s call. 

Blackwood played for a while with the abandon of a man who has cheated death and is attempting to tick off his bucket list, reaching 30 from just 21 balls. At this point he drove hard to give Jamieson a tough return chance that was put down. This seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he took a further 43 balls to reach 50. With Shamarh Brooks he put on 68 for the fifth wicket.

Brooks was bowled by Jamieson playing no shot for a 92-ball 14, the first of the six remaining wickets to fall for the addition of only 34, leaving the West Indies with a deficit of 329. Southee and Jamieson divided the wickets equally between them, but this was a combined achievement of the whole attack. There was no let up in the pressure from either end.

The final two wickets were taken on the third morning. Since the abolition of the rest day, it has become unfashionable to enforce the follow on, but Tom Latham could feel what it was like to be Clive Lloyd, with four fast bowlers at his disposal, two of whom would always be fresh, so the West Indies openers were back in on a cold morning that had me watching the first session from the Long Room. 

The second innings went much better than the first for the visitors.There was more of an attacking intent, with 186 more runs scored in just 23 more overs compared to the first innings. The openers had almost seen off the opening spells from both ends when Boult removed Brathwaite and Bravo in the 11th over, the former to a fine catch by Young at leg gully off the middle of the bat. 

Campbell and Brooks put on 89 for the third wicket, but both fell within four runs of each other, interspersed with Chase picking up a pair. We expected the game to be wrapped up within the hour, but the West Indies lower order had more spirit, led by their estimable captain. I have written before of my admiration for Jason Holder, who has borne the burden of the West Indian captaincy with courage since the dark day of the World Cup quarter-final at the Cake Tin when he fielded lonely on the boundary as Martin Guptill tore his team apart. 

Holder found support from debutant Joshua Da Silva. They put on 82 for the seventh wicket in 18 overs, relying on the big hits rather than rotation of the strike and took the game into the fourth day helped by an early finish because of bad light, which, as ever, came when the batsmen were seeing the ball better than at any point in the match.

Holder was out in the first full over next morning to a cracker from Southee that left him just enough to take the off stump. Alzari Joseph got off the pair with a hooked six off Southee and made 24 entirely in boundaries before being caught behind off a legside strangle. Da Silva got a deserved half century on debut.

Wagner uprooted Gabriel’s middle stump to secure the victory with a margin of an innings and 12 runs. As usual, New Zealanders put the result down to how poor the opposition had been. As Holder acknowledged after the game, their catching was awful and spending so much of their lives in various degrees of quarantine over the past few months must take its toll, but we must overcome the natural humility that is central to our charm to acknowledge that we have a very good test cricket team. 

That as good a player as Devon Conway does not walk straight into the team shows the strength of the batting (Williamson returned to the team for Boxing Day and peeled off his 23rd century). We have added to this a four-man quick attack of high quality, even if, with loveable Kiwi diffidence, it lacks the speed of the great Caribbean attacks or England 2005. Of course, Wagner bowls as if at 150 kph rather than the mid 130s that the machine registers, a magnificent illusion worthy of membership of the Magic Circle. A quality spinning all-rounder would round things off nicely. Mitch Santner may fill this slot, but isn’t there yet. 

India’s defeat of Australia in the Boxing Day match in Melbourne means that New Zealand and Australia are level on points at the top of the ICC rankings, but, as we have come to expect from ICC contests, a technicality (most boundaries? wicketkeeper’s height? who knows?) keeps us in second place. 

This is different from the ICC test championship, with a final at Lord’s in prospect for the top two. New Zealand have a path to this, but it seems to depend on a decisive win for either Australia or India in the rest of their series, and for India against England. 

This may leave us in the awkward position of being on Australia’s side in the current series, though unprecedented choruses of C’mon Aussie, C’mon have yet to be heard this side of the Tasman.

I wish everyone a happy and safe 2021. 

New Zealand v India, first test, Basin Reserve, 21–24 February 2020

Scorecard

This is an account of a test match played little more than a month ago, though it seems now to have been in another time, so much has happened since. To be able to watch cricket at all has become a matter for nostalgia. For us in New Zealand, at least it has come at the end of the season. We lost only a couple of rounds of the Plunket Shield. Let’s acknowledge that to view all this through a cricket lens is to get it badly wrong, but as someone who every year counted down the days until I could first risk April hypothermia on the roof of the Hammond Room in Bristol or elsewhere, I share the loss that county cricket watchers will feel right now.

Many of that group will wonder what county cricket will look like when it returns. Will it emerge with enough money to sustain 18 counties? Will those who seek to undermine the county structure, however much they deny it, ensure that it doesn’t?

For now, here is an account of four pleasant days at the cricket.

First day

The Basin Reserve looked a picture on a sunny morning. For the first time in almost a decade the Museum Stand was open, having been restored and strengthened against earthquakes. It has a new, somewhat unimaginative, name—the Old Pavilion. There is a new pavilion, the players’ area next to the RA Vance Stand. It might kindly be described as functional, though at least it is consistent with the architectural style of Wellington’s sports venues. Down the road, the Cake Tin, here the Bread Bin.

It has a good name though: the Ewen Chatfield Pavilion. In the UK Chatfield is best remembered for having his life saved by Bernard Thomas after edging a Peter Lever delivery onto his temple. Here, he is regarded as the quintessential New Zealand cricketer, military medium into the wind, setting the batsmen up for Richard Hadlee at the other end. Chatfield is still seen at the Basin whenever he can spare the time from driving his taxi. He retired from club cricket just last year, 51 years after his debut for the same club. He didn’t tell his Naenae Old Boys teammates until after the game that it was his last, as he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

New Zealand won the toss—a novelty of itself at the Basin—and put India in on a pitch that had the browny-green hue of a stagnant pond. But the customary first-morning handouts were not on offer, nor did the pitch enter its usual coma after lunch. This was the best test pitch I have seen at the Basin, “best” not in the misused sense of being easy to bat on, but providing a balance between bat and ball. Throughout, there was assistance for the quicker bowlers, but it required work and skill to find it; there was bounce too, enough to test the batsmen. Ashwin even found some turn out of the footmarks; whether that would have developed into anything significant on the last day and a half, we will never know. It was a thousand times better than the dead tracks on which the England series was played.

There were six changes from the XI that I saw beaten in Sydney at the beginning of January. Williamson, Nicholls and Boult returned from illness and injury. Spinners Somerville and Astle made way for Ajaz Patel’s slow-left-arm (Sydney turned out to be Astle’s last first-class appearance—he announced his retirement soon thereafter). Pace bowler Kyle Jamieson made his test debut after impressing in the 50-over side. And Tim Southee returned. Southee’s omission from the XI at Sydney is one of New Zealand cricket’s great mysteries, our version of the disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. Watch out for a Dr Who episode entitled The Mysterious Dropping of Southee in a few years’ time. Neil Wagner was absent, supporting his wife as their first child was born. Matt Henry was omitted; he is slipping down the pecking order of New Zealand quick bowlers.

Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal opened for India. Twenty-year-old  Shaw could be the next big thing, but may never be good enough to deal with the sort of delivery that he received from Southee, which swung very late and hit the top of off.

Kyle Jamieson becomes New Zealand’s tallest test cricketer at six foot eight, topping Peter Fulton by a couple of inches. Like Tom Blundell, Jamieson has looked promising in domestic cricket without demanding an international place, but when given the opportunity looks as if he belongs there. Few players have pure talent in such quantity as to guarantee success at the highest level. For most, it comes down to how well they adapt to the challenges it presents. Jamieson relishes them. Barring statistical anomalies, have any other bowler’s first two test victims had a combined test batting average of more than 100?

Jamieson’s accurate off-stump line and tall-man’s bounce had induced diffidence in Pujara, and when a full-length ball straightened more sharply it found the edge to be caught by Watling. Kohli started aggressively, but in Jamieson’s next over edged another full-length delivery to Taylor at first slip.

Agarwal and Rahane took the innings well past luncheon (as I will continue to call it in tribute to John Woodcock), showing that the pitch was not combustable. It was misjudgement rather than movement that ended the partnership when Agarwal top-edged a pull to be caught at fine leg off Boult. Vihari became the third victim of Jamieson’s probing off-stump line. Progress was slow, with only 43 runs added in 27 overs during the afternoon session.

Rain came during the interval. Visiting crews in next year’s America’s Cup contest could usefully acclimatise themselves to New Zealand’s vigorous winds by doing a spell on the groundstaff at the Basin, some of whom might have been swept up over Mount Victoria while clinging onto the large groundsheet that serves as the primary covers. There was no further play; India finished the day on 122 for five.

Second day

The start of play each day was at 11 30, just as it used to be when I was a lad. However, unlike then, play here did not end at 6 30, giving us time to march briskly down the Old Dover Road to catch the 6 45 bus home. It sprawled on, not knowing quite how to end, like the Hobbit films made by Peter Jackson at the studios just down the road. The time lost yesterday was added on at the end of the day, rather than to the beginning, as was the case in the England series. This is because Indian TV wants it that way. There should be no complaint about this; the rights to this series will go a long way to keeping New Zealand cricket going for the next few years. The T20s had begun at 8pm, and that at the Cake Tin didn’t finish until gone midnight, after the losing super over that now seems obligatory for New Zealand. Some people who went didn’t get home until past 1 30am, yet were still in their seats for the first ball of the domestic one-day game at the Basin the following morning. Heroes.

Rishabh Pant resumed for India. He had been unusually subdued on the first day, but today he put the fourth ball of the morning in the food court next to the main stand.

Ajaz Patel was the bowler, on just to allow Southee to change ends. It was his third over, and last of the innings. He bowled the same number in the second innings, a reflection of how well the quicker bowlers bowled here. He was dropped for the second test, thanks partly to the poor record of spinners at Hagley Park. Also, de Grandhomme performs the holding and control role that is usually that of the spinner. The all-rounder’s 11 overs on the first day had cost only 12 runs.

However, Patel’s influence on events was not at an end. Rahane pushed a ball from Southee into the offside and set off for a sharp single. Pant took three paces down the pitch, then stopped. Rahane hesitated, but carried on. Patel, moving square from cover point, should have thrown the ball to Watling who was sprinting towards the stumps with plenty of time to take the bails off before Pant got there. Instead, Patel went for glory, and hit the one stump he had to aim at.

Pant’s selection as keeper was criticised by Harsha Bhogle as taking India down the well-trodden road of going for the better batsmen over the artisan keeper, Wriddhiman Saha in this case. Farokh Engineer agreed that Saha is the better gloveman but thought that the selectors were right to go for Pant as a package, the same reasoning having accounted for a good proportion of his own 46 test caps. Pant kept wicket well here.

Ashwin’s dismissal by Southee, was to a ball every bit as good as the one that dismissed Shaw. It was Ashwin’s first ball, but if it had been his two hundredth he would have stood no more chance of keeping it out.

Southee and Jamieson finished the innings off efficiently, both ending with four wickets. India’s total was 165 and would have been less but for Shami’s late-order slogging.

Now for something that I have been looking forward to for a few years: the chance to watch Jasprit Bumrah bowl. Bumrah’s run up resembles that of your aunty on her annual spell on the sands at Skegness, before turning into something wonderful as he passes the umpire. Like Lasith Malinga, Bumrah would never have survived a regimented academy system; he is a celebration of dissidence.

Tom Blundell continues to impress in his surprise role as a test opener, which he approached so seriously here that he did not get off the mark until the seventh over. There were a few false shots, and he was a little fortunate that balls that might have been caught landed in space, but he remained unfazed, an attribute for a batsman at the top of the order. He was still in when the spinner came on, always a sign (in New Zealand, at least) that the opener has done his job. The opening stand had reached 26 when Latham was dismissed somewhat softly, caught behind off a legside flick just after lunch.

Williamson’s first ball bounced steeply and took him on the gloves. That was just about the only false shot he played. He looked in prime touch from then on.

Blundell played around a Sharma inswinger to be bowled for 30 from a self-denying 80 deliveries. This brought in Ross Taylor in his hundredth test match, only the fourth New Zealander to achieve this after Fleming, Vettori and McCullum. What’s more, he became the first cricketer anywhere to notch up a century of international appearances in all three forms. I first came across him when he was a member of the New Zealand Under-19 squad in 2000/1 when I covered part of their series against South Africa for CricInfo. Just 16-years-old, he had scored a half century in each of the first two games, but only managed six when I saw him at New Plymouth and did not much better in the subsequent one-day series. The CricInfo scorer knew Ross quite well so he spent a bit of time with us. He came across as a modest but self-possessed young man, confident enough of his ability not to need to draw attention to it. The level-headedness has enabled him to make the most of the ability, and could be felt in the warmth of his welcome to the field as he came out to bat. Seven-thousand runs also helps, of course.

Two of his trademark shots came out straightaway. The not-quite-falling-over-push through the legside got him off the mark, then everybody’s favourite, the slog-sweep, nowadays generally reserved for the encore, but on this special day the opening number, putting Ashwin onto the terraces while still in single figures. To show that that he is down there with the kids, Taylor later ramped a boundary off the back of his bat.

The Williamson–Taylor partnership took New Zealand past India’s total for the loss of just two wickets, which was massively therapeutic for those of us who had been in Australia. But without addition Taylor was surprised by Sharma’s pace and gloved a catch to Pujara at backward short leg for 44.

Williamson continued give a reasonable impression of an angel at the crease. Two offside boundaries from one Bumrah over after he had been in for half an hour had the RA Vance Stand purring like a cattery at dinnertime. He was Shakespeare knocking off a sonnet, Rutherford splitting an atom. A century appeared inevitable, but on 89 he got a cover drive slightly wrong and substitute Jadeja took a good diving catch.

Henry Nicholls took 50 deliveries to reach double figures and was out to Ashwin, edging to gully a ball that turned quite sharply. Three of the other wickets fell to Sharma, who bowled splendidly. He has always been quick enough to bother good players but now has added guile. He exploited the extra bounce in this Basin pitch magnificently.

New Zealand were 51 ahead with five wickets standing when the sun disappeared behind the Old Pavilion to bring play to a close 20 minutes early.

Third day

Some test-match traditions are immutable. Picnics in the Harris Memorial Garden at Lord’s; beer snakes at Headingley; the band at Port Elizabeth; Chickie’s disco at the Recreation Ground, Antigua; that on one day of every test match played at the Basin Reserve there will be a southerly that could blast freeze molten lead. Today was that day.

Perhaps the wind had a chilling effect on BJ Watling’s judgement. He followed the first ball of the day from Bumrah—one that he could have been relied upon to leave 99 times out of 100—to be caught by Pant.

With the lead far from decisive and wickets falling fast, home supporters were in need of reassurance. In these circumstances the appearance of Tim Southee is as comforting as setting sail only to discover that the captain is wearing an eyepatch and brandishing a cutlass.

Sure enough, a couple of overs later he glanced a Sharma delivery that was well wide of leg stump straight to Shami at fine leg, possibly leaving the field as a test No 8 for the last time, given the fine performance by Kyle Jamieson that followed. Not many batsmen have hit a six before they are out of double figures in their debut innings as he did. Three more followed, as he showed equal relish for pace and spin. He was caught at long on going for a fifth six that would have taken him to a half century, having written his name on the New Zealand teamsheet in indelible ink.

Jamieson out de Grandhommed de Grandhomme, who was content to take the supporting role and to have the rare experience of watching himself bat. He was out soon after, feathering a legside catch off the glove to the keeper off Ashwin.

I am not generally a fan of music during play, but it would be quite reasonable if the Benny Hill theme were to ring out throughout every Trent Boult innings. He bats as if he hasn’t noticed that the library has given him the tennis coaching book rather than that for cricket. But what an eye he has. The most astonishing shot from a strong field of contenders was a full toss from Shami on middle stump that he clipped to the cover boundary while in retreat towards square leg. Boult made 38 from 24 balls including five fours and a six. New Zealand’s lead was 183.

Shaw looked in good touch with three offside boundaries in the first eight overs, before Boult’s extra bounce surprised him, though it needed a spectacular catch from Latham, stationed at leg gully for precisely that delivery, to complete the dismissal.

Pujara seemed just the man to bring India back into the game with a fighting innings. His defence was solid. De Grandhomme resorted to placing three catching short covers, to no avail. But Pujara couldn’t score. I was put in mind of the great CJ Tavaré at Lord’s in ’84 (and in many other places at many other times, to be fair), existing in a sort of temporal stasis.

Pujara was out to the last ball before tea, symbolically strokeless, leaving alone a Boult delivery angled in from wide of the crease that hit off. He made 11 from 81 balls.

In the final session, 66 runs were scored for the loss of two wickets, which sounds mundane. It was anything but; the cricket was gripping. The wickets were Agarwal, though it needed every bit of the DRS’s technology to confirm Aleem Dar’s caught-behind decision; and, crucially, Kohli, also caught behind, off a thin edge trying to hook Boult.

I had mixed feelings about this. It was a large step towards a home victory, but a cricket fan always wants to see the great players be great. I saw Kohli in his prime… He made a century last time India played at the Basin, but only when the game was dead. Given the punishing programme that Indian cricketers face, he might have been forgiven taking the foot off the pedal on a tour to a quiet corner of the world, but there has not been a second when Kohli has appeared anything other than consumed by his team’s interests. He has had a poor series with the bat, because he cares too much, not too little. The mutual respect and liking between him and Williamson has made for an excellent spirit between the two teams.

Fourth day

The wind had shifted back to a more social direction and was mostly absent; the sky was blue. It reminded me of days at Folkestone at the end of August, when summer had settled into contented, predictable old age.

India were 39 behind with six wickets standing, a good position for New Zealand, but there was anxiety among the Basin faithful. We have often seen recovery from an apparently hopeless position, usually by New Zealand: against India in 2014, Sri Lanka in 2015 and Bangladesh in 2017. We looked at the Indian team listed on the scoreboard and were impressed. There were plenty of runs left, more than that attack might give us.

Such pessimism. The game was over by lunchtime. That this was so was mainly down to the excellence of Boult and Southee, both at the point where physical ability and experience, or science and art, complement each other perfectly. Yesterday, Boult took three of the four wickets. Two of them were from short deliveries, testimony of itself to his skill, given that pace is not his chief weapon.

Boult took his fourth in the third over of the morning. Close enough to off stump to force Rahane to play, it moved just enough to take the edge of the bat.

Southee now took over. He began in the next over by working Vihari over a treat. First, he swung one away. The next one came in, through the gap created between bat and pad by the previous delivery.

Ashwin was leg-before, bringing in Sharma to buckle such swashes as remained. He was dropped twice, by Latham at short leg and Southee at short cover. Neither were difficult, but it didn’t matter. The latter miss was off de Grandhomme, who got the wicket he deserved by when he got Sharma leg-before.

Southee finished off the innings, helped by two brilliant catches, first by Boult at fine leg to dismiss Pant, then substitute Daryl Mitchell at second slip off Bumrah.

Southee finished with five for 61, Boult with four for 39. Richard Hadlee is New Zealand’s greatest bowler by a street, but these two are the outstanding bowling combination, one of the finest in cricket history. This was New Zealand’s 100th test victory, and Southee and Boult have bowled in combination in 28 of them.

Latham and Blundell completed the ten-wicket win without incident.

New Zealand took the second test in Christchurch by seven wickets, Southee and Boult again destroying India’s second innings after even first innings. So New Zealand took India apart after having the same done to them in Australia. What does this tell us about the state of world cricket?

The disadvantage of away teams remains an issue, though India’s preparation was better than most these days with the players not involved in the one-day series playing for India A against New Zealand A in four-day games. Perhaps the World Test Championship should give double points for away wins, though this assumes that anybody takes any notice of that competition which seems to have taken off like a hippo trying paragliding.

New Zealand are back to No 2 in the test rankings, just ahead of Australia and England. They are not scheduled to play tests again until August so are less immediately affected by the hiatus than some countries.

Stay safe, wherever you may be.

A loss for New Zealand and other matters

New Zealand v India, ODI, Cake Tin, 3 February 2019

Scorecard (links to video)

As I took my seat before the start of this game—the fifth and final of the series—I reflected that a little under four years ago from much the same spot I observed a hapless young West Indian captain fielding on the boundary in front of me, near the exit leading to the dressing rooms, his symbolic desire to get off the field as quickly as possible obvious and painful. It was the World Cup quarter-final and they had given him pop guns to deploy against the artillery of Martin Guptill, on his way to 237 not out.

So it was cheering to have started the day listening to radio commentary from Antigua of that same young captain—Jason Holder—leading the West Indies to a series victory over England, and performing so well with bat and ball. As I have written so often before, I owe much of my love of cricket to early exposure to Caribbean cricketers, who made it look such a joyful and thrilling way to pass the time. That they are on their way back is the best news.

As we all know, Holder missed the final test, suspended for not hurrying up the bowling sufficiently for the match to finish earlier than the last session of the third day. I recall Backwatersman writing that he is never aware of how fast or slowly the overs are being bowled, and isn’t much concerned about it. I’m the same. Without looking at the scoreboard, I have no idea, at lunch say, how many overs have been bowled in the session just concluded. You might as well fine a river for reaching the sea tardily. Imagine if blame-the-captain justice had been in operation in the seventies. The Yorkshire team would have moved like statues so as to get rid of Boycott for a couple of games.

I have enjoyed the Talk Sport commentary from the West Indies (in New Zealand we have no TV coverage of the series, so the radio is not geoblocked). It gets the job done, has some interesting features and is not as self-regarding as Test Match Special. Mark Nicholas is one of the best broadcasters around, as long as he is not in Australia. For a posh Pom without an international cricket pedigree he did well to front Channel Nine’s coverage for a decade or so, but the Devil (played by Kerry Packer, born to the role) demanded as his price that Nicholas had to worship Australia and all things Australians with an enthusiasm that in comparison made Dame Edna Everage look no more a patriot than Germaine Greer.

The defeat in the West Indies has shaken England’s recent confidence in itself as a test team, despite the consolation win in the final test. This one-day series against India has had much the same effect on New Zealand’s self-perception in this form of the game. It began with New Zealand ranked third in ODIs, after a comfortable three-nil win against Sri Lanka (and we know how misleading three-nil wins against Sri Lanka can be). India would be tougher test of course, but New Zealand would be competitive; a close three-two defeat, like that against England last year, was thought the worst that could happen. So the three drubbings that were the first three games sent the cricketing nation into deep introspection.

I noted during that England series that New Zealand’s strategy appeared to rely on one player, probably Williamson or Taylor, to play a world-class innings, and that this had been surprisingly successful. The solid contributions across the top half of the order that are the more conventional basis for success did not happen last year or this, but this time were not compensated for by a cricketing Popeye with his tin of spinach. The second-highest individual New Zealand scores in the first two games were 24 and 34, the third-highest in the third 28.

Like England’s test team, the problems start at the top of the order. Martin Guptill is out of form, but the hope is that class will out. Colin Munro has been his partner for a while. A dominating batsman in T20s, his technique has become exposed over 50 overs. In T20 he is bold, in ODIs he is bowled.

Henry Nicholls was moved up to open in the fourth game. Here, My Life in Cricket Scorecards boasts its first exclusive in nine years, or as close to one as it likely to get. I fell into conversation with the guy two seats along, who, it turned out, was Nicholls’ father. I can reveal that Henry is very happy to open, relishing the challenge, and would be equally happy to be reserve keeper in the World Cup squad, having kept proficiently throughout his early career. This seems the sensible way to go, better than the selectors managing to persuade themselves that Tim Seifert is good enough to take a batting slot.

New Zealand Cricket backed Nicholls’ talent early and have been vindicated. His test average is 43 and climbing. Though his ODI record is more patchy, he is more likely to offer long-term consistency than any other available candidate. It was good to hear that he has a positive team’s-needs view of his ability (cf Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and the No 3 position).

For the first three games, Munro was the sixth bowler, but he is more a seventh bowler, a Graham Gooch-style dobber (those of us who were there have never got over the disaster that was making a fifth bowler from a combination of Gooch, Boycott and Larkins in the World Cup final of ’79). In these bat-dominated times, captains need six bowlers capable of bowling a full allocation if they are to respond properly to events.

Nicholls’ promotion to the top of the order allowed this to happen, but India’s collapse for 93 in the fourth game was, from the selectoral point of view, the worst thing that could have happened, as the recalled Todd Astle and Jimmy Neesham bowled fewer than three overs between them, no test at all.

It was five for 21 from Trent Boult that undid India in game four, which told us nothing new. Boult apart, the selection of the bowlers has been subject to rotation throughout this series. Boult takes the quaint view that the best way of maintaining form and fitness to bowl at international level is to bowl at international level, and has the mana (a useful Maori word meaning respect and status) to stand aside from the rota.

This fifth game was New Zealand’s last chance before the World Cup to test players against top opposition. Three-match series at home to Bangladesh and away to Ireland follow, but against lower-grade opposition a moderate player can do well and be difficult to drop. New Zealand should by now know what their World Cup squad will be, but have at least four bowling/all-rounder places that are undecided. Here, Henry, Neesham, Astle and Munro (back in for the injured Guptill) might be regarded as in the selectoral repecharges, with Bracewell, Ferguson and Southee also contending. The inclusion of Southee in this list will probably surprise overseas readers, but his one-day stats have been going downhill since the last World Cup. He is said to be in the rotation, but appears to be following the orbit round the sun of Pluto, so rarely is he seen.  

India are without Virat Kholi, who took a break after the third game and is on holiday elsewhere in New Zealand, and Jasprit Bumrah. Giving these two key players a rest is wise, but a disappointment for those of us who were looking forward to watching two of the current World XI. However, MS Dhoni had recovered from the injury that kept him out of the fourth game, so giving us almost certainly a last chance to see him in an ODI in New Zealand.

India won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch of uneven colour, though nothing like the lunar surface that produced such a good game against England last year. Then, 234 was, just, a winning score. In the tenth over, at 18 for four, this seemed beyond India’s dreams.

Matt Henry conceded just two runs from his first two overs, then knocked back Sharma’s off stump with killer late outswing reminiscent of Southee from the same end against England in the World Cup.

In the next over, Henry was at third man to take the catch when Darwan lashed out at a short one from Boult, a reward for both opening bowlers for keeping it so tight early on.

This brought together the tyro Shubman Gill and the old master Dhoni. Looking back at the scorecard in 20 years’ time it might be a curiosity to find them both together in the same XI. Gill played one sumptuous off drive that had “promise” written through it like “Blackpool” in a stick of rock, but was then caught at short cover, pushing leaden-footed at a Henry delivery that didn’t come on as he expected.

Those of us hoping for something magnificent from Dhoni on his farewell were to be disappointed, though it would be a fair description of the Boult inswinger that uprooted his off stump.

Rayudu and Shankar set about rebuilding. They must have made a astute estimate of what a winning score would be and realised that they did not need to go for 300 at all costs. Wicket preservation was the priority, so that sufficient reserves were in place for the final charge. They put on 98 for the fifth wicket in 22 overs before Shankar went to a Brexit of a run out: no plan, utter confusion and no majority for any course of action.

Surprisingly, Williamson opted to put Munro on ahead of Astle, who would have wanted the opportunity to make his case for the second spinner’s spot (assuming that Santner has the first because of the balance he offers). Superficially, it was the right decision. Munro bowled straight through, conceding 47 from ten (and that included two sixes in his last over). But he didn’t take a wicket, and didn’t look likely to. Rayudu in particular used him like a life raft to navigate to a secure position. The run out apart, no wicket fell between the tenth and 44^th overs, when Rayudu fell ten short of a deserved hundred.

The key to success in contemporary ODI cricket is to take enough wickets through the innings so as to limit the potential of the batting side  to explode with runs in the last ten overs. Their failure to build upon an excellent start to do this cost New Zealand the game.

Hardik Pandya led the charge in the final overs with five sixes in his 45, three of them off consecutive deliveries from Astle. India finished with 252.

Matt Henry performed the best of the bowling auditionees, finishing with four for 35 from ten, almost enough to get him on the plane. Todd Astle was only given five overs finishing with nought for 35, so it was a day when Ish Sodhi did better by not playing.

Television companies might consider adapting one of those endless property restoration programmes to New Zealand cricket. “This is Kane. My, the innings is in a sorry state. Can he apply a bit of paint and bang in a few nails in the right places to rescue it?”. Today, it was 38 for three in the eleventh over, Nicholls, an unconvincing Munro and Taylor gone.

Williamson looked out-of-sorts at first, making only five from his first 24 deliveries, but the first two balls of the 18^th over, bowled by Shankar, went for silky, feather-light fours, the first a cut, the second a straight drive. The partnership with Latham advanced, mostly in singles, until it reached 66, parity almost restored.

Williamson then miscalculated in a way that he rarely does, attempting to pull Jadhav over the mid-wicket boundary, only to provide an easy catch. With the required rate only just above six, there was no need to interrupt the steady flow of singles at that stage.

Latham was also out swinging across the line, lbw to Chahal. De Grandhomme followed a couple of overs later, a couple of handsome fours impressing les than the ability to work the ball around for a while would have done.

At 135 for six, much now depended upon Jimmy Neesham. Like De Grandhomme’s, his ability to crash and bash is unquestioned, but has he the repertoire for all occasions? This innings provided a good deal of evidence that he does. There were big shots, including two sixes, both over mid-wicket from deliveries that were ripe for the purpose. On 44 from 32 balls, 77 needed at under six an over, he had put New Zealand back into a position of near-equality.

“What happened next?” is a question that Neesham will wake up in the middle of the night for decades to come trying to answer, without being able to. Swinging across the line to Jadhav, he was hit on the front pad. There was a loud appeal, but the impact was clearly outside the line of off. The ball hit Dhoni’s leg and trickled a few feet behind the stumps. A couple of steps and it was in the keeper’s gloves. But Neesham had set off for a single, and had no chance of getting back before the stumps were broken. Had Santner set off from the non-striker’s end, the old cliché “they wouldn’t have crossed” would, for once, have been absolutely accurate.

A few big blows from Matt Henry notwithstanding, that was it, a 35-run defeat, New Zealand left with an uncomfortable number of uncertainties about form, selection and prospects with no more games against top-level teams before the World Cup.

There was a good turnout form the local Indian community, who brought to the occasion a generous exuberance that reminded me of the Caribbean crowds at Lord’s and (in particular) the Oval in the 1970s.