New Zealand v England, World Cup, 20 February 2015, the Cake Tin

New Zealand v England, World Cup, 20 February 2015, the Cake Tin

The other day Corey Anderson said that the New Zealand team was a “juggernaut”, which in Britain describes a large truck. That makes England the rabbit transfixed by the headlights, unable to evade the inevitable squashing.

It was sheer joy at the Cake Tin yesterday. For a start, it was sweltering, a word we use sparingly in Wellington. My Khandallah correspondent, who has spent her life under the scorching sun of the upper North Island, passed the first two hours charting the approach of the shade towards our seats.

And I saw the best one-day bowling that I have ever seen; the most spectacular innings I have ever seen; and captaincy so rich in innovation and imagination that it moved me.

McCullum’s field-setting was worth the price of admission. He makes Mike Brearley—who once stationed a helmet at short extra cover—appear cautious and unresourceful by comparison.

The New Zealand captain is in the process of rewriting the one-day captaincy manual. There were three close catchers, then four, then five, then—for Morgan—six. It was breath-taking. McCullum rejects orthodoxy as if it were carrying the plague. His strategy is to restrict scoring by taking wickets. Ross Taylor could play for another 20 years if he can stand at first slip all innings.

McCullum’s conception of cricket’s possibilities is different and exciting. If all captains would commit to attack as he does, all fears about the future of 50-over cricket would be allayed. My Life in Cricket Scorecards is no musician, but watching Brendon McCullum lead a cricket team must be what it would have been like watching von Karajan at his peak conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. A little louder from the piccolos, a second gully. Slightly slower cellos, third man move squarer.

Regular wickets kept the pressure on England in the first part of the innings. Eoin Morgan looked as scratchy as a flea-ridden tabby, but is a good player who could relocate his form at any moment. At 104 for three, Morgan and Joe Root seemed to be close to restoring parity. Who would have guessed then that the game had fewer than 20 overs left to run?

They were a bit slow, mainly thanks to a miserly spell of six overs for 17 runs from Daniel Vettori, who reminded me of Derek Underwood. This was partly because Vettori is a highly skilled and very clever slow left-armer, but also because the batsmen were playing his reputation as much as his bowling. Time and time again I saw batsmen retreat into caution against Underwood because of the years they had spent watching the consequences of failure. Joe Root and his generation cannot remember a time when Vettori was anything other than a one-day tourniquet and it shows in their approach.

England appeared to have decided to play Vettori out, but Morgan’s resolve broke and he went for the big straight shot. My correspondent and myself had a perfect view of the ball coming towards us. It appeared to be about to pitch safe just short of the long-on boundary. But Adam Milne lengthened his last couple of strides before leaping full length, taking the ball in two hands in mid-air and landing safely. That was the moment the game turned on.

McCullum struck with the certainty of a lioness stalking a wounded wildebeest. Southee was brought on at once and immediately bowled Taylor with an outswinger so beautiful that Mark Antony would have spurned Cleopatra to kiss it.

Of course, other captains might have brought back their strike bowler against a new batsman, but fewer would have resisted the temptation to save some of that bowler’s overs for the death. They would have settled for 210 for eight. Only McCullum would have also bowled his other strike bowler out at the same time. 123 all out.

Seven wickets fell for nineteen runs. As an overseer of collapses Peter Moores could arrange a job swap with the Greek finance minister. Joe Root barely faced a ball during these overs, an example of the lack of intelligence that characterised England’s day.

Tim Southee was brilliant. Seven for 33 was the best performance for New Zealand in ODIs. His control of the ball and use of the crease could not have been bettered by Alderman, or even Hadlee. Four of the seven were bowled, all with a graze of the off stump (love the flashing bails by the way). The swing was not huge, but with such precision it did not have to be.

There was no doubt that McCullum would go after the bowling. His name and “steady accumulation” are antonyms. But the ferocity and accomplishment was beyond prediction, best recorded in his scoring sequence: 160044444016404606666401W. It was slugging not slogging, the quickest fifty in World Cup history (previous holder: B McCullum). As in every other aspect of the game, McCullum incinerates the text book and does it his way.

Anderson, Finn and Broad are seasoned international bowlers, but the experience of having an opening batsman rampaging down the pitch in the first overs appeared new to them. There was no plan. They didn’t know what to do.

The four consecutive sixes were off Steve Finn in an arc between cover and long off. One worries for Finn for whom, even more than most bowlers, confidence is the glue that holds his game together. Half an hour in the public stocks would have been no more humiliating.

On a desperate day for England, one member of the team deserves special mention. A woolly resident of any field in New Zealand selected at random would have brought more brainpower to the game than Stuart Broad managed. Who knows why, coming in at 110 for seven, he thought that the best way to deal with Southee (five for 28) was to try to belt him over long on? His first ball to McCullum fed the batsman’s signature lofted cut, and the rest of the over allowed the New Zealand captain to set off flying. That Broad should finish the game with a high-wide bouncer that flew over Buttler’s head to the boundary was somehow fitting.

I can barely express how much I enjoyed this game. New Zealand pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. England gloriously hopeless. Just when you think that cricket has given you all it can along comes Brendon McCullum who says “let’s make it a little bit better”. 

Two ODIs at the Cake Tin

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 29 January 2015

New Zealand v Pakistan, 31 January 2015

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

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

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

As it turned out, that was plenty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Zealand v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test, 4th day, Basin Reserve

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

As I have grown older I have become less certain about stuff. No longer do I believe, as I once fervently did, that Mr Gladstone had the solution to the Irish Question. I am not as sure as I was that gherkins are the ideal complement to a roast dinner, and I concede that it is worth spending more than $10 on a shirt.

But on one matter I will not be shaken. That test match cricket is the finest public entertainment that could be conceived of, and that its existence is sufficient of itself to mark us out as a sophisticated civilisation.

That belief has been reinforced by today’s play at the Basin. One day I will write about the best days’ test cricket I have had the privilege of attending. This day will be on the list, no doubt about it.

The facts are these: Kane Williamson and BJ Watling, having batted throughout the final session of play yesterday, kept their wickets intact until well into the final session today before withdrawing unbeaten with their respective highest test scores of 242 and 142.

More than that, together they put on 365 for the sixth wicket, more than any pair has managed in any of the 2,156 test matches that have been played since 1877. Remarkably, the previous record was set at the Basin last February and BJ Watling was involved then too, with Brendon McCullum. I would have to check Bradman’s record more carefully to be certain, but a quick perusal of CricInfo does not produce any other example of a batsman breaking his own world partnership record.

And I was there to see it. Watching a world partnership record being set has always been a spectating ambition of mine. I had thought that being there for the first 150 or so of the McCullum/Watling record would be as close as I would get.

There were not a huge number of ravishing shots. Between them, Williamson and Watling hit only 27 fours (and one six for the latter). A death-march slow outfield did not help, but the beauty of the batting was in the discipline and tempo. After an hour’s play today I wrote a note questioning if they might be a bit slow, it being too soon to bat just for time. They knew what they were doing: ensuring that the foundation was absolutely solid. When the pace quickened in the afternoon, it was not through big hits, but precisely placed shots for one and two. So very clever.

Williamson’s concentration is extraordinary. He could sit through the Ring Cycle followed by a reading of War and Peace without showing the least sign of weariness. Nine test centuries and he is not 25 until August. Watch him bat and remember that you are watching one of the greats.

On the radio Allen McLaughlin has been making the point that BJ Watling featured in none of the World XIs picked by various pundits at the end of the year. Most pick AB de Villiers as keeper. De Villiers is a fine batsman, but a manufactured custodian. Watling is a superior keeper and, as a double world-record breaker in the last twelve months, has the batting credentials.

Conventional wisdom would have it that New Zealand—one up in a two-match series—should bat on well into the last day, so as to remove Sri Lanka’s chance of winning completely. Some of us hoped that McCullum would be bold enough to give Sri Lanka four or five overs at the end of the day, chasing a target of 450 plus.

But Brendon McCullum likes to roll the dice. He is interested in winning test matches as much as test series. The declaration came earlier than we had dared to hope (or in some cases, feared). It was thrilling, audacious and so smart. He set Sri Lanka 390 in 107 overs. Very tough, but possible, with Sangakkara in the line-up. And Sri Lanka have to have a go if they are to save the series, the risks they must take thus increasing New Zealand’s chances. Test cricket needs captains prepared to be as bold as McCullum.

Contrast with Steve Smith, grimly batting on at the MCG last week until India were completely shut out, cutting his own chances of victory off at the knees.

What will happen on day five? Boult and Southee might swing it like the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Sangakkara might emulate Arthur Fagg and score two double hundreds in the same game. Or it might peter out into a tame draw. The uncertainty will quicken our step down the Kent Terrace on the way to the Basin on Wednesday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Owen Delany Park, Taupo

My Khandallah correspondent and myself have just returned from our Christmas trip to the Waikato (for Christmas, she added the 1958 Wisden to the yellow-spined brotherhood on the library shelves at My Life in Cricket Scorecards Towers, regular readers will be pleased to hear).

There and back we passed by Owen Delany Park on the outskirts at Taupo, in the central North Island. Last year we stopped there to give the dog a run and had a walk round (the accompanying photos are from that visit).

Its location is spectacular, surrounded by forest and overlooked by the dormant volcano Mt Tauhara. On a clear day, the volcanic triplets Mt Ruapehu, Mt Ngarahoe and Mt Tongariro, snow-capped and ready to rumble, can be seen across Lake Taupo. The lake is the biggest volcano of the lot. When it last let loose, in 176 AD, writers in China and Rome commented on the curious colours of the skies, unaware that were looking at volcanic detritus from Taupo. There has been no bigger eruption anywhere on Earth since.

The ground itself is quintessential New Zealand, perfect for watching under blue skies from the roomy grass banks that form the arena.

What a shame then that it is not a cricket ground any more. The park is still a venue for King Country rugby and there was an athletics track marked out when we were there, but there is no longer a cricket block on the main ground. Bat and ball are relegated to the outer ovals behind the stand.

Not so long ago, Owen Delany Park was a regular host of Northern Districts matches, and an international venue too, staging ODIs over the holiday period from 1999 to 2001.



Owen Delany Park and its ineffective floodlights

It was the ground at which I first watched cricket under lights, and from where I first reported for CricInfo, so it has good associations for me besides being a pleasant place to watch cricket.

The floodlit game was played between Northern Districts and Otago in my first New Zealand summer, just after Christmas 1997. I say “lights”, though the pallid luminosity that emanated from the four towers stationed for that purpose around the ground barely warranted the term. The point when the power of the artificial light surpassed that of the natural light would never have been reached under a full moon.

The lack of effective lighting was the main reason for Owen Delany Park’s downfall. Seddon Park in Hamilton acquired state-of-the-art lights in 2002 and took over the day/night games that had previously gone to Taupo. In the last few years, Northern Districts has had an enhanced choice of venues, with new grounds, both with excellent facilities, at Mt Maunganui and Whangarei.

A little under two years later I was back at Owen Delany Park, this time with pen in hand. I had recently forsaken educating for the freelance life, and planned to send CricInfo daily reports on New Zealand A v the West Indians. These were the infant days of digital communication when “wireless” still meant the old wooden radio in your grandparents’ loft. I wrote the pieces at the ground then at the close of play drove back to Rotorua, an hour away, to key them in before dispatching them at (if I was lucky) 56 bytes per second. Yet we were happy then.

The results can be seen here.

The reader is invited to compare my reports with those of the Barbados Nation. I have yet to hear from Bridgetown regarding my pleasantly worded suggestion that they might pay me for my material.

Shiv Chanderpaul’s double century was the feature of the match. He was then what he is now: the Thomas the Tank Engine of batsmen, not much to look at, but reliable and steady, getting to the destination ahead of the bigger, flasher engines in the shed. Here’s the scorecard.

CricInfo liked this and other unsolicited pieces that I supplied for the daily newsletter that season, enough to give me regular work when a New Zealand operation was set up for the 2000/01 season. Until the money ran out three years later, my patch was pretty well everything south of Auckland and north of Wellington. Taupo was right in the middle of this area, so I returned there often.

The main stand (also the only stand). CricInfo used to operate from benches at the back of the stand.

 

Even by the congenially high standards of New Zealand’s cricket grounds, the hospitality at Owen Delany Park was particularly warm and welcoming. Interesting people passed through and were happy to chat (no doubt seeing my attempts to present myself as a hard-nosed journalist for the sham they were). They included Sir Richard Hadlee, John Bracewell, and John R Reid, who reminisced about the 1949 tour of England.

Our usual station was the radio commentary box where Radio Sport’s Phil Stevens was pleased to have the assistance of CricInfo’s live scorer, usually the excellent Gareth Bedford, and myself.

We reported on plenty of good cricket from Owen Delany Park, notably a couple of one-day games between the New Zealand and South Africa under-19 sides, including Hashim Amla and Johann Botha (then a tearaway quick rather than the bent-armed spinner who was to become South Africa’s one-day captain) for the visitors and Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder for the hosts. I am relieved that my reports show that, by and large, I could spot who the good players were.

The last ODI to be staged at Owen Delany Park was played between New Zealand and Zimbabwe, just after New Year 2001.  I was there as a spectator. Zimbabwe won the game convincingly, a brilliant display of reverse-sweeping by Andy Flower doing much to get them into a winning position. New Zealand won the second game only for Zimbabwe to take the series with a one-wicket win at Eden Park.

At that time, Zimbabwe were well on the way to establishing themselves in international cricket in a place similar to New Zealand’s: on the second level, but with the capability to surprise the best teams quite often. Mugabe’s tyranny put an end to that, reducing the country to also-rans with no prospect of improvement in the foreseeable future.

Owen Delany Park and Mote Park bear a passing resemblance to each other if the Photoshop of the mind replaces the chalk of the North Downs with Lake Taupo’s igneous outpourings. Both are places where the cricket has been good and the sun bright, but where I am unlikely to set up my folding chair on the grass bank again.

 

Wellington v Auckland, Plunket Shield, Basin Reserve, 11 to 14 December 2014

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-domestic-2014-15/engine/match/770765.html

Fourth day

My Life in Cricket Scorecards achieved a lifetime’s ambition at 10 am on Sunday morning; for the first ten minutes of the day it constituted the entire crowd. The first two-and-a-half overs were its private entertainment and it could barely suppress a cry of “Proceed!” before the first ball was bowled.

The early start was down to the weather, which had curtailed progress over the first three days. Play did not begin on the third day until 4 pm when the temperature was measured at six degrees. A penguin wouldn’t accept a free ticket in those conditions. I’m sure that the mercury dropped to similar levels on the Hammond Room roof at the County Ground, Bristol in April days of yore, but I was younger then and my desperation for cricket after the long English winter always set my judgement askew.

So it was not until the fourth day of this Plunket Shield game that I put in my first appearance of the season. Overnight, Wellington were 77 ahead with seven wickets standing, so anything could happen. That’s the delight of first-class cricket: a run chase; a collapse; a canny declaration; elegant attack; sticky defence; the ball turning square; the ball not turning at all; a great catch; a missed stumping; a shambolic run out. Or the whole thing can end in torpid anti-climax. A night at the theatre with a different ending every performance.

One thing was certain: a Cachopa would be involved. There were three of them playing for Auckland: Carl, the all-rounder, Craig, the opening batsman, and Brad, the wicket-keeper. All the size of pixies. In Wellington’s first innings the Cachopii had a hand in nine of the ten wickets.

Today’s script dropped some heavy clues about the denouement almost before the orchestra had finished playing the overture. Left-arm opening bowler Michael Bates removed both the incumbent batsmen in the first quarter of an hour. Stephen Murdoch was caught behind driving at a ball that left him. Tom Blundell was struck on the pads playing across the line. Umpire Ashley Mehrotra took an age to rule. By the time the finger was raised Blundell had already taken several steps towards the rooms.

Another thing that makes cricket the king of pastimes is that even when you have watched for as long as I have it will still conjure something new. Today, when fast bowler Matthew Quinn bowled to debutant Henry Walsh, he did so with seven in the slip cordon, a silly mid off and a mid off. Nobody left to field on the legside then. So when Walsh turned a ball from outside off stump into the vacant acres, as was inevitable, it was the bowler who had to pursue it.

Rob Nicol's 9 - 0 field for Matt Quinn

The best that can be said for this is that it offered Rob Nicol (the Auckland captain) a controlled environment in which to exercise his psychological need to test half-witted theories, rather than exposing society at large to harm.

Walsh lasted for ten overs before losing his leg stump to Bates. It took only a further eight overs for Auckland to finish Wellington off. The most eye-catching feature of the lower-order batting was a series of millionaire off drives from Ili Tugaga, his preferred approach to getting off the mark. When, against expectation, he succeeded in hitting the ball with one of these pieces of speculation, he was caught at mid off for a duck.

That was Carl Cachopa’s third wicket; Bates finished with four for 47.

So what explains Wellington’s subsidence? There was movement, certainly, though the report that described the pitch as “green” was exaggerating, from what I could see at least.

Just as happened when I watched Gloucestershire collapse on the first morning against Kent in September, the ball tended to find the edge of the bat rather than beating it entirely, and most of the edges went to hand. Still, seven wickets had fallen for 50 today, so Auckland’s target of 128 might not be the early Christmas present it seemed.

Opener Jeet Ravel started impressively. He is a tall left-hander with a wide stance and expansive style. A square-driven boundary off Arnel was the shot of the day, but Ravel was out quirkily off the next delivery. As the ball rose off his thigh pad, Ravel attempted to lift his arms clear, but in doing so committed the very indiscretion he was seeking to avoid. He deflected the ball with just enough power to dislodge one bail when it came into contact with the stumps.

Two of the Cachopii—Carl and Craig—were now united. Carl had earlier survived a Gillespie appeal on the grounds that it was too high on the leg, a rare event for one of the brotherhood. The partnership was worth only four when Craig was bowled by a full-length Matt McEwan delivery.

With Auckland 29 for two, Wellington were bouncy. Another couple of wickets and they would be on top.

Colin Munro put an end to such pretensions. Munro is one of those cricketers who takes much the same approach regardless of the format or state of the game. Hard, clean hitting is to Munro what cold baths were to the Victorians: the palliative for all ills.

Here, 59 off 49 balls, 52 of them from boundaries (four sixes), settled the matter. He was particularly harsh on the normally abstemious Arnel.

Munro was out 24 short of victory, but look at the scorecard and you will be misled. It says that he was caught by Walsh. It was indeed Walsh who caught the ball on the long-off boundary, but he was still shuffling his feet to ensure that he did not connect with the boundary rope when he threw the ball to the nearby McEwan, who should therefore be credited with the catch.

McEwan is a bustling medium-fast bowler in the manner and shape of Tim Bresnan. This was his Wellington debut after a couple of seasons with Canterbury. The ball followed him about for a while. He took a fine catch to get rid of Carl Cachopa, running back with his hands above his head, but dropped an even harder chance diving in from the fine-leg boundary in a brave attempt to intercept a Nicol top edge.

It was too late to make a shred of difference anyway. Auckland won the game by six wickets and were top of the table after two rounds. Most of the Plunket Shield will be played while the World Cup is in progress, so I may be a lone spectator again before the season is out.

Mote Park, Maidstone

On our recent visit to the old country I treated my Khandallah correspondent to a trip to Mote Park in Maidstone. The park contains 450 acres of mature parkland, a 30 acre lake, a stately home and a rich history in which Elizabeth Woodville, Henry VIII, Ann Boleyn, Elizabeth I and William Pitt the Younger all feature.

All of this we ignored.

The sole interest of our visit was the north-west corner of the park, where one of the finest cricket grounds in Kent is to be found.

Maidstone Week, usually in the first week of July, sits in the memory as the best of summer. Sun baking a flat, fast pitch from a clear blue sky; the woods across the valley pulsing in a light breeze; Asif Iqbal shimmying down the pitch to send the ball rasping through the covers; the birdsong tempered only by the welcome purr of the ice cream van’s generator.

Of course, the memory tints the image. In 1980, for example, it began raining in the late afternoon on Sunday and there was not another ball bowled until five on Thursday.

The good news is that it is still a cricket ground, unlike the Crabble in Dover for one. It is home to the Mote CC, one of Kent’s most famous clubs, and staged two Kent Second XI Championship games last season. But there has been no county cricket there since 2005 when a dodgy pitch caused Kent to be docked eight Championship points.

Pitches can be put right. The expense of taking cricket to the outgrounds and the period-charm nature of the Mote’s facilities are why the county has not returned, and is not likely to.

So I was pleased to be able to introduce my correspondent the ground much as it was throughout the three decades that spans my watching cricket there.

Though located a walk away from the town centre (lunchtime food replenishment is possible—the Mote holds a three-egg rating*), the outlook from the ground is predominantly rural. From the bank on the southern side one looks across the valley to the scarp slope of the North Downs, on their way to Dover to form the white cliffs. So many shades of green.

The cricket field is located on the middle of three tiers. The top level is the home of Maidstone RFC and a car park. The grass slope down to boundary is the main spectator area. In this respect, the Mote is more like a New Zealand ground. Of course, in Kent we are not as outré as to come into actual contact with the grass. There must be seating. In the seventies, this was rusticity itself. Planks of four by two balanced precariously on upright logs. Most days were enlivened by a row of stout parties finding themselves on their backs, feet waving in the air.

The Northern End

For cricket week the marquees lined the boundary from the bank to the scoreboard at the Northern End. There’s a short expanse of concrete terracing, from which we would watch Sunday League games when the bank tended to get overfull.

The Pavilion

Square to the pitch is the mock Tudor pavilion, which I once saw Clive Lloyd clear with a six. Further along, the boundary bulges back into the field of play, making space for a square, terracotta-coloured building known as the Tabernacle. Originally the private pavilion of Viscount Bearsted, it was used as the club office on match days. Both buildings date from 1910.

The Tabernacle

I first went to the Mote in 1972, when I saw Alan Knott hit his second century of the match, against Surrey. I was last there in 2002, for a resounding defeat of Durham in the Sunday League.

From the end of school until a reluctant entry into the world of work I would be there throughout cricket week. After that, the Mote always drew me back to Kent for the weekend.

There was so much fine cricket, some of which was in my mind’s eye as I walked the boundary and rested on the bank in September:

·       The day in 1976 when a helicopter landed on the square with the Sunday League trophy, just as Colin Dredge was run out in Cardiff, meaning that Kent had won it.

·       Two wins in 1978, the last year Kent won the Championship, with 19 wickets for Derek Underwood.

·       Losing to Middlesex by one wicket in the rain in 1981.

·       A fluent double hundred by Graeme Fowler in 1984.

·       My reward for turning down tickets to Live Aid in 1985 to go to Mote Park instead: a run-a-ball century by Roger Harper.

·       Mark Ealham setting about Derbyshire in general and Dominic Cork in particular for a 44-ball century in 1995, the fastest ever in the Sunday League then.

I was surrounded by the ghosts of spectators long gone, on their backs, feet towards the sky.

*The My Life in Cricket Scorecards Scotch egg ratings rank cricket grounds according to ease with which food supplies can be replenished during the day.

Only Folkestone has ever held the prestigious five egg status, the only ground in my experience to have a supermarket close enough for the replenishment of Scotch eggs during a drinks interval without missing a ball. Challenging certainly, requiring speed, strategy, cunning and the ability to knock aside old people without feeling remorse, but it could, and has, been done.

Unfortunately, Folkestone was subsequently downgraded to four eggs after the supermarket was rebuilt with the entrance at the other end of the building. Why don’t these people stop and think?