1967: Setting the Scene

Almost every Wednesday and Saturday from late April to early September a new round of County Championship matches would begin. Three-day games of course; another two decades would pass before a fourth day was added, even tentatively. The seventeen counties (no Durham as yet) each played 28 games, so would meet 12 opponents twice, and four just once, an imbalance reintroduced into division two of the County Championship in 2017. That all counties played the same number of matches was a recent development; as late as 1962, some had played 32, some 28. Gaps in the schedule might be filled with games against the touring teams or Oxford or Cambridge universities.

One-day cricket remained an afterthought. The Gillette Cup—60 overs a side—was a straight knockout; Kent played only four games to win the competition. But a quiet revolution was taking place on Sunday afternoons. The International Cavaliers played a 40-over game each week, live on BBC 2. The Cavaliers are a neglected part of cricket history, as proved by the fact that a Google search has a post from this blog, written in 2010, as the leading source of information on the Cavaliers apart from a brief and inaccurate Wikipedia entry. The Cavaliers are cricket’s North-west Passage, the missing link between the game as it had always been played and the brave new world of limited overs, world cups and Kerry Packer.

Cricket was not entirely the staid Victorian relic that it is often thought to have been at this time. Nineteen-sixty-seven was the second season with Sunday play in some games. Cricket was the first professional sport to toy with the wrath of the Almighty in this way. This was the last year of the old-fashioned points system, with eight for a win and four for first-innings lead. Bonus points came in 1968 and have been with us in one form or another ever since. It was also the last year in which no overseas player was allowed to play for a county without serving a residential qualification period.

Kent played at home on nine grounds (and the second XI on three more, including two in Sittingbourne). Most counties were peripatetic to some degree; only Middlesex and Leicestershire remained at headquarters for the duration. Among other places, Kent would visit Brentwood, Peterborough, Southport, Hastings, Leyton and Burton-on-Trent during the season. The intervening half-century has seen a slow but unstoppable move away from truly county cricket, culminating in the Birmingham Bears and the 2020 20/20 franchises.

Like most who watched county cricket at that time, I regret the end of the caravan era, but nostalgia makes the memory selective; some of the outgrounds were hardly up to staging a village fete let alone a professional sporting fixture. The pitches were of mixed quality too, though this was not a bad thing. What eventually did for three-day cricket more than anything else was that the pitches became too good, using the batsmen’s definition at least. By the mid-eighties the norm had become a two-day phoney war to occupy the time before a chase for an agreed target. Cricketers of the sixties will tell you that developing the survival skills necessary in such conditions made them better players

It was the time of uncovered pitches too. If the rain fell after play started, the pitch (but not the run-ups) would not be covered until the abandonment of play. This seems entirely counter-intuitive, incomprehensible probably; but if you watched cricket on a drying pitch you regret that the experience has gone. Snoozing old cats of pitches would become spiteful tigers while their fur dried out. It was another dimension to the game, and helped move three-day games along.

Yorkshire started the season as county champions, having won two more games than any other side in 1966. The playing staff (“squad” was not yet in cricket’s dictionary, let alone “group”) included nine England players and five more who would be. The restrictions on player movement and overseas players gave Yorkshire an advantage, though they did their bit to nullify that with their insistence on allowing only players born in the Ridings to wear the Yorkshire cap. They were led by the Old Bald Blighter (as Alan Gibson called him) Brian Close. Those who don’t know of Close should picture a rhinoceros charging a machine gun post to get a flavour of the man. He was the England captain and was to have a very strange 1967 indeed.

Kent were on the up. After a dismal 1950s during which they only once (and just at that) made it into the top half of the table, they had risen from 13^th in 1963 to seventh, fifth, and fourth in the following years. Leslie Ames must be given be given the bulk of the credit for this. He was appointed manager at the start of the sixties and as one of the county’s most famous players was the only man who had the reputation and character to assert professional competence over the amateur meddling of the committee. Colin Cowdrey had been captain for a decade, but was away with England for almost half of the Championship programme most years. 

Kent had seasoned professionals such as the South African batsman Stuart Leary and the vice-captain Alan Dixon, an all-rounder who could bowl seamers or off spin, and a group of talented younger players headed by the openers Mike Denness and Brian Luckhurst. And two of the all-time greats starting out: Derek Underwood and Alan Knott. It was a good time to start watching cricket in Kent.

Six test matches were scheduled, three against India and three against Pakistan, neither team expected to offer the excitement or quality of the West Indians of the previous season. England (or rather MCC) had not toured over the winter, though an under-25 team including Knott and Underwood went to Pakistan. It was captained by Mike Brearley (who was 75 yesterday). Near the top of the list of cricketing days I wish I’d seen was that at Peshawar on 1 February 1967 when Brearley scored 312 in a day, like one of those flowers that blooms once every fifty years. Alan Knott opened with him and scored his maiden hundred as they put on 208. According to Wisden, Brearley “annhihilated a fair attack which had little support from the field” (Intikhab Alam bowled more overs than anybody and he was a very good bowler).

There is much more to say about cricket in England 50 years ago, and about the world that it was played in. Stay tuned, as they used to say on the Light Programme.

The Summer of ’67: a project

There was scant evidence in Kent that it was the Summer of Love, and there were few with flowers in their hair, even during Canterbury Week, but the summer of 1967 is fondly remembered in the hop county. It was the year in which the Gillette Cup was won, the start of the golden era of 11 trophies in 12 years. Also, of my first Wisden and first visit to Lord’s. And 50 years ago, so worthy of commemoration. 

Which is why I intend to relive the summer of ’67 using media not conceived of then. 

The plan is to tweet (@kentccc1967) scores and highlights at the conclusion of the 50^th anniversary of each day on which Kent played, and follow it up with blog pieces after each match (or at least once a week). These will flesh out the story of the game, and cast an eye over other matches, both Championship and test. Tweets will imagine that it is 1967, while blog posts will use hindsight to reflect on events. By happy coincidence the dates fall on the same days of the week in 2017 as they did fifty years before.

Scorecards has always tried to be about not only the cricket, but also being at the cricket. What were the people around the boundary talking about in 1967? What music were they listening to, what were they watching on television or at the local Odeon? Both tweets and blog posts will look at what was happening in the world as the cricket was being played.

Wisden, the Kent Annual and CricInfo will obviously be essential sources, as will the online archive of The Times, which carried lengthy reports of most county games. John Woodcock—still writing occasionally for the paper today— was cricket correspondent, heading a talented team. Happily, it was the incomparable Alan Gibson’s first season as a regular writer, and reading new (to me) Gibson reports is already a joy. There was Charles Bray, who captained Essex before World War II and was a founder of the Cricket Writers’ Club, and AA Thomson, writing with waspish humour on cricket in the north. Peter West too, when television commitments allowed. The Times will also be a wonderful source of wider news and events. BBC Genome tells us what was on BBC radio and television, and which commentators were at which games. Collections of diaries and letters from 1967—from Barbara Castle to Kenneth Wiliams—will provide plenty of background material for specific days.

The Twitter account—@kentccc1967—has been set up, but I will blog on Scorecards, at least until I can think of a decent name.  I’m after something that is taken from the time with a cricketing twist, but the best I have come up with so far is “Closey in the sky with Double Diamond”, so the search goes on.

Kent’s season started at Trent Bridge on Saturday 29 April. I will post a scene setter before then.  

New Zealand v South Africa, 2nd test, 16 - 18 March 2017

Scorecard

First day

The last time I wore a suit and tie to the cricket was on 24 July 1997, to watch Middlesex v Kent at Lord’s in the County Championship. It was just a few weeks before I left for New Zealand, so, sensing that it would be a long time before I returned to St John’s Wood (I’ve not been back to date), I dressed as required sit in the pavilion and wander through the Long Room.

For the first day of the Basin test against South Africa, I wore the same Kent member’s tie but a suit of a more generous cut. Thus attired, I could pass through to the parallel universe of VIP hospitality, a world of salmon and scones, coffee and croissants, chardonnay and cheese boards.

On days when there is no cricket to watch, I pass the time by being advisor to the Opposition Chief Whip in the New Zealand Parliament and was at the Basin In An Official Capacity.

The experience began with coffee, biscuits and a pleasant chat with Don Neely, former Wellington captain, national selector and historian of the Basin and of New Zealand cricket. Next, Sir Richard Hadlee (warning: the names in this piece will not be so much dropped as carpet bombed).

Sir Richard had detected that My Life in Cricket Scorecards has failed to shake off an English accent despite twenty years of living in New Zealand.

“Where are you from?”

“Kent.”

Broad smile. “I enjoyed bowling in Kent.”

“It always appeared that you did.”

He also spoke at his pleasure at achieving the recent release of the documentary The Forty-Niners, on the 1949 tour of England, led by his father, Walter Hadlee. Almost all of those who appear are now dead, but fascinating use was made of interviews collected by Jeremy Coney for a series he did about 15 years ago.

We were on Sir Richard’s table at lunch (of course), as was Geoff Allott, joint leading wicket-taker at the 1999 World Cup. Allott works for New Zealand Cricket and talked enthusiastically about the future of the game here.

Best of all though, was that on the next table were two Australian legends: Alan Davidson and Neil Harvey. Davidson was the Wasim Akram of his day, with 186 test wickets at 20 (and an economy rate of under two an over), and nine first-class hundreds. Harvey is the only survivor of the 1948 Invincibles, the last man alive to have played test cricket with Bradman. Harvey made 21 centuries in just 79 tests, which puts him among the greats. I saw him play for Old Australia v Old England at the Oval in 1980, well past his heyday, but still capable of finishing the game with a polished, easy 29 not out, supporting Keith Stackpole in a match-winning partnership of 73. Off spinner Ashley Mallett was present too.

Sitting there, as close to Davidson and Harvey as if standing with them in a slip cordon, was like lunching in the same room as Gladstone and Disraeli. Sir Ron Brierley, a generous patron of the Basin, pays for this visit to the Basin test every year.

Back in the 21^st century, South Africa won the toss and put New Zealand in. Tom Latham’s form is such that were he a racehorse a shotgun would have been called for by now. Often in such circumstances a lucky break can turn things round, and in the fifth over Morkel failed to convince du Plessis to call for an lbw DRS that would have dismissed the opener. But Latham’s luck did not hold; he edged to third slip in Morkel’s next over. Maybe in more fertile times Latham would have got a little further forward, but the quality of the ball rather than the deficiency of the batsman, was the bigger factor.

Kane Williamson made only two before being trapped leg before by Rabada. The skipper going early is as significant as the ravens leaving the Tower in New Zealand cricket, the collapse of the fortress the inevitable consequence. It meant that Neil Broom came to the wicket for his first test innings in tricky circumstances at the age of 33. Clarrie Grimmett (who learned his cricket here at the Basin) and, less durably, David Steele started successful careers late, but few players of true test class evade the selectors’ gaze for so long. Broom failed to score, brilliantly caught by wicketkeeper de Kock off Rabada, leaving New Zealand at 21 for three.

That New Zealand finished in the foothills of respectability with 268 was thanks to Henry Nicholls, who, in his 13^th test, arrived as a test player with a century made in adversity against a class attack. It is characteristic of a really good player that the nature of the innings does not give away the circumstances in which it is made (see Kane Williamson, passim). Such was Nicholls’ innings here, with intelligent run gathering early and fluent drives later in the day. Up to this point in his international career he has had class but not runs. Doubts were being muttered as to whether he was the real deal. This was graduation day.  

Support was spasmodic. Raval was dogged until the over before lunch when he played for turn to a ball from left-arm spinner Maharaj that went straight on. Six New Zealand wickets fell to spin. The last time that happened on the first day at the Basin they were all taken by Bill O’Reilly on the first day of test cricket after the Second World War. JP Duminy took four of them, something he has done only once before. He had dismissed only two batsmen since the start of 2016, yet here he mesmerised the home batsmen, for no readily apparent reason.

An adhesive 34 from BJ Watling apart, the most impressive performance from the lower half of the order came from Tim Southee, rarely a sign that things have gone well. Jimmy Neesham hit three fours off one over from Morkel but was then lured forward by Duminy and stumped by de Kock, whose keeping was top class.

It had been a struggle, so it was surprising that New Zealand ended the day close to level terms with Neesham catching both openers at second slip, Cook off Southee and Elgar off de Grandhomme (Boult was injured and did not play). Elgar’s wicket was of particular value as he had taken the New Zealand attack for more than 200 in Dunedin in the first test.

South Africa finished the day 244 behind with eight wickets standing. I found space for a last cream and jam scone before reluctantly making the reverse journey through the looking glass back to the real world.

Second day

Stripped of my VIP epaulettes, it was back to the cheap seats for Friday’s play. But it was a lovely day and South Africa were 91 for six just before lunch, so slumming it with the members didn’t seem so bad.

Nobody expected the morning to go that well for New Zealand, particularly with Hashim Amla at the crease. Amla’s form on this tour has been indifferent, but class will have its day and when he hit a gorgeous straight drive off Wagner mid-morning, it seemed that a masterclass of batsmanship had commenced. But a few overs later he chipped a leg-stump half-volley to Nicholls at mid-wicket, the second catch that the fielder had taken there this morning.

The bowler was de Grandhomme, who should bowl in a hooped jersey carrying a bag marked “swag”. I have been critical of de Grandhomme as a test player often enough, and thought that Wagner should have been first on at the Vance Stand end this morning, a view reinforced when de Grandhomme went for three boundaries in his fourth over of the morning. But by lunchtime he had shuffled in to take three of those South African wickets, and over the innings as a whole bowled one more over than Wagner (who also took three wickets) but at less than half the cost.

Spectators are allowed on the Basin outfield at lunchtime, so a self-selected jury gathered around the pitch, duly solemn. I feel sorry for the pitch at times, because it is so often found guilty purely on circumstantial evidence. Pitches are like the predictions of Nostradamus: they can be properly interpreted only when you know what has happened, at which stage people with no clue can present themselves as sages. This one was certainly much slower than the coconut shy against Bangladesh that demanded a new chapter on the header in the MCC Coaching Book. That may explain why a number of batsmen who should know better got out to soft shots, but it was not the raging turner that the New Zealand scorecard would suggest.

Prone to pessimism as we New Zealanders are when it comes to cricket (and much else), none of us at lunch on the second day contemplated a South African victory the following afternoon. By the end of the day the thought was at least germinating, thanks to a magnificent seventh-wicket stand of 160 in 40 overs between Quinton de Kock and Temba Bavuma.

So far on the tour, de Kock had been clickbait for Jeetan Patel, but not today. He provided classic batting skills at a rapid rate, his 91 coming in just 118 balls. For a long time after South Africa’s return to test cricket they exercised old-fashioned caution in their batting, as if set on taking things up from exactly where they had left off in 1970. Regular readers have heard before about the excruciating day at Eden Park in 1999 when Cullinan (who began the session on 142) and others ground out 64 in 35 overs between lunch and tea. Memory has it that the scoreboard started displaying the Samaritans’ phone number, but that may be through the mists of time. Happily, those days have gone. A ramped four and six from successive balls by de Kock off Southee early on set the tone, and he was eager to take Wagner on, dispatching a short ball over the long leg boundary. A third six went over long on off Patel.

He received excellent support from Bavuma, one of the few cricketers who 

would not need to stand in a hole to look Harry Pilling in the eye. His 89 contained not a single run in the V between long off and long on, but as would be expected of one of his height, he cut the ball to ribbons at the merest rumour of it being short. 

Both de Kock and Bavuma were out when centuries seemed inevitable, de Kock softly chasing a wide one, and Bavuma bounced out by Wagner. When Bavuma went at eight down South Africa’s lead was only 22, leaving New Zealand level in the game bearing in mind that South Africa were batting last on a pitch that promised more turn than usual at the Basin. But a last-wicket partnership of 57 between Philander and Morkel (a record for South Africa against New Zealand) moved the lead into the significant category as well as being greatly irritating, which is the point of last-wicket stands. Oddly, No 9 Philander (whose test batting average is 24) supported No 11 Morkel, who did most of the hitting, and very well too, much more convincing than Tim Southee usually is doing the same job at No 9.

The partnership was still intact at the end of the day, which at least saved Latham and Ravel an awkward spell against the new ball. It had been a fine day of test cricket.

Third day

Saturday was a two-sweater day, the southerly coming in like a bailiff serving an eviction order on summer. First, the formalities of the South African innings were concluded: a couple of straight fours by Morkel off Patel took the lead to 91 before he was bowled by the off spinner.

New Zealand are masters of the second-innings comeback at the Basin. Three of the last four tests here have produced a famous draw, after conceding a lead of 246 against India, and two victories, against Sri Lanka (deficit: 135) and, just two months ago, Bangladesh (56). So were we downhearted? Not as much as we should have been. Only three batsmen reached double figures as New Zealand ran up the white flag first against the pace of Morkel, then the spin (or sometimes not) of Maharaj.

Latham was first to go, pushing without conviction at a ball angled across him to be caught in the gully. In better form he would have left it; in best form cracked it to the cover fence.

Kane Williamson has never made fewer runs in a test match than the three he scored here, only a single before getting a fast, short ball from Morkel good enough to draw one of the world’s best into an involuntary shot. The appeal was turned down, but hotspot showed a small but irrefutable mark and off he went.

Neil Broom avoided the debut pair, but spent the early part of his innings floundering for the ball like a drunk looking for keys in the dark as Philander controlled the ball as if by Playstation. Broom survived until lunch and began to play some good shots, but went soon after, to a brilliant catch by de Kock, who is my current selection for World XI wicketkeeper.

Now Maharaj took over, dismissing six of the remaining seven batsmen. He bowled with accuracy and good variation, and exploited the footmarks outside the left-handers’ off stump well, but Hedley Verity he is not. He beat the left-handers past the outside edge more than the inside edge, as they played the ball in their heads rather than the one on the pitch.  

Turn was a factor only in de Grandhomme’s dismissal, a peach of a ball that pitch on middle and hit off, far too good for the batsman’s creasebound defence, bat at a jaunty angle.

Raval and Nicholl both went to wide deliveries. There was praise for Maharaj for tempting them, but even if the line was deliberate, certain individuals in Lagos would be keen to have the email addresses of people so easily duped.

Perhaps inspired by the proximity of the National War Memorial Neesham and Southee went about playing Maharaj as if charging at machine guns, the outcome entirely predictable.

Raval had top-scored with 80 when he fell. He was uncomfortable against spin, and was dropped in the fifties, but has the temperament of a test opener. With Latham short of form but not class (he was to score a fifty in the third test), the New Zealand test openers selection is less of a worry than for some time.

Apart from Raval, the only meaningful resistance came from Watling, with 29 from 83 balls, which was admirable but pointless given the propensity of the New Zealand lower order to faint like an Edwardian debutante. Watling is an exception to the almost universal pattern that wicketkeepers who bat at No 7 or thereabouts bat aggressively (Gilchrist, Prior, de Kock etc), and sometimes eccentrically (Knott, Russell etc). He is basically a defensive batsmen. It would be better, therefore, if he were to bat at No 6, which would strengthen the middle order and take the pressure off whichever of the not-quite all-rounders—Neesham, Santner, Anderson, de Grandhomme—are selected. On this topic, the New Zealand selectors have to clear about the balance of the team. There is no point in picking players to fill two roles when they would not be selected for either on its own. Better to have a longer tail but an extra bowler, or to get by with a four-man attack.

South Africa knocked off the 81 required for an eight-wicket win.

Postscript

South Africa’s win at the Basin gave them a one-nil series win. Rain took out the last day of the third test in Hamilton with South Africa 95 behind with five second-innings wickets remaining and New Zealand to bat again. The last day of the first test in Dunedin was also lost, but with the game more even: South Africa were 191 ahead with four wickets left. Over the series, New Zealand might be thought unlucky to lose, but this was an inept batting performance at the Basin, so sympathy should be rationed.

So ends the 2016/17 New Zealand season. It has not been a vintage one, thanks mostly to the weather, which wiped out or truncated a fair portion of my schedule of domestic cricket. The highlight was the test against Bangladesh, which is not to damn the season with faint praise, but to remind myself of what an unexpected pleasure that game was, Bangladesh putting up the highest first innings score ever to lose a test match. The blogging baton is handed on for the next few months into the care of Backwatersman, Cricket Novice and the others who do such a fine job of writing about being at the cricket in England.

Serenity at the building site

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, 26 February to 1 March 2017

Each province has five home games in the Plunket Shield. This season, Wellington’s first was played in spring when the Basin Reserve was a sub-branch of the Antarctic; the second was played 550 kms away; the third was cancelled because of earthquakes; this game is the fourth; the fifth is a day-nighter during the working week. So this match represented the best chance this season of enjoying domestic first-class cricket in the sun. I was there for most of the first day, and after lunch on the second and third days.

Readers in Britain should understand that domestic first-class cricket in New Zealand has long since ceased to be regarded as an attraction for the paying spectator. There is no charge, but neither are there any spectator services (though it is possible for members to buy food in their lounge), or even a public address announcer. The Basin is a public thoroughfare unless there is a match that requires payment at the gate, so there is a constant stream of pedestrians and cyclists passing between the spectators (not always in the plural) and the field of play.

A couple of years ago this fixture was played at Karori Park in Wellington’s western suburbs, sharing the field with two kids’ games and getting a smaller audience than either.

Pleasant as it was sitting in the sun at the Basin last week, I still thought wistfully of my day at the Nevill in Tunbridge Wells last July when 3,000 plus sweltered watching a game of first-class county cricket with all the panoply that comes with it: the marquees, the scorecard sellers, the food stalls. How one yearned now for the seductive chime of the ice cream van.

Add to this that the Basin’s main stand remains a building site. Our friends in the full body suits and breathing masks were back on the third day to remind us of the risk we were taking in watching the cricket. There are currently no seats in the stand and the members’ lounge reverberated to hammering and drilling.

All this would be inconsequential were it not for the fact that New Zealand are to play South Africa in a test match here starting only two weeks after the end of this game. It would be nice if there were seats in the stand for people to sit in. The official word is that the new seats are “on the way from China”. Insert the phrase “slow boat” into that sentence at will. The Museum Stand is full of sturdy wooden benches, but is shut, being an earthquake risk (yet the museum beneath it remains open).

Canterbury have become the first New Zealand team to adopt the practice (now established in the County Championship) of putting numbers and names on white shirts. The names are too small to read, there is no publicly available list of which number belongs to which player, and on the first day nine of 11 numbers were covered by sweaters, but the thought’s the thing.

Wellington were put in by Canterbury and made 291 in 91 overs, built around two century partnerships: 117 for the third wicket by Papps and Borthwick and 108 from Marshall and Blundell for the fifth.

Michael Papps is in fine form in his nineteenth season of first-class cricket. He moved to his half-century with three fours in one over off Andrew Ellis. Scott Borthwick was less fluent. He was in many pundits’ squads for England’s test tour of India after consistent high scoring for Durham for the past three years, but not that of the selectors. Instead he finds himself playing in the local leagues for Johnsonville, where the Taj Mahal and Gateway of India are merely alternative sources of takeaway dinners. What’s more, Borthwick was unable to secure a regular place in Wellington 20 and 50-over teams, carrying the drinks on several occasions. Here he toughed it out for 47, the sort of innings that can turn a player’s form around.

Hamish Marshall started slowly but was soon cutting like Vidal Sassoon and reached his fifty from 82 balls. Aside from the two century partnerships, Wellington’s highest score was Jeetan Patel’s 14.

Before the game began, Patel was called up to the national ODI squad for the final two games of the South African series, so would play for the first two days here before being substituted by someone who can also bat and bowl. This, I don’t approve of. It’s different from having a player called up unexpectedly halfway through a game. One of the defining features of cricket is starting with a set of resources that cannot be varied.

Matt Henry, five for 62 from 26 overs, was Canterbury’s best bowler. It is hard to recall Henry bowling badly for New Zealand, and he is No 10 on the ICC ODI bowling rankings, but he is not in the national team for any form of the game currently. Here he bowled with pace and penetration, the rain breaks helping to keep him fresh.

On the second day I arrived just after lunch to find Canterbury 60 for two. Peter Fulton was in and looking good. A couple of weeks previously he had destroyed Wellington with magnificent century in the 20-over final of the 50-over competition. Here, he looked as if his form had been carried over. Unusually, it is Fulton’s onside shots that are all timing and those on the offside that rely on power. He was out for 79, poking at a ball well outside off, a tame way for one in such good touch to get out. Henry Nicholls went in similar fashion, suggesting that this was not a pitch that took kindly to being driven on. Anurag Verma’s skiddy fast-medium was responsible for both dismissals.

Jeetan Patel bowled a long spell, offering value before heading for the airport at the end of the day. For the greater part he bowled with no fielders on the boundary, something that you usually see only when a side is on all-out attack. Mid on and mid wicket were both two-thirds of the way back, an invitation to batsmen to have a go. Yet when Todd Astle accepted the offer it took only a couple of successful tonks to send the fielder back to long on. He stared, Patel (or maybe captain Papps) blinked.

Hamish Bennett bowled (another) hostile spell. He has Astle lbw and thought that he had Fletcher caught behind, but the umpire demurred. As well as being a quality bowler, Bennett is one of New Zealand’s finest appealers, fit to be measured against Robin Jackman of Surrey, always the gold standard of appealers.

Arnel, the grumpy grandad of the Wellington attack, was the meanest of the bowlers, not helped by the frustrated air kick that he aimed at the ball at the end of one over making unintended connection, giving the batsman a bonus overkick. He took just one wicket, as did Patel (27 overs) and Woodcock (three overs).

Wicketkeeper Cam Fletcher shepherded the tail to a total of 243, displaying the gnomic qualities of his distinguished Essex namesake, but a deficit of 54 seemed significant on a pitch that was (to borrow Scyld Berry’s description of a Caribbean pitch the other day) grudging.

Arriving at lunch on the third day, I discovered that Wellington’s second innings progress had been sedate, and continued to be so throughout the afternoon, 248 runs the day’s harvest. It was far from disagreeable, sitting in the sun enjoying a rare pleasant day in Wellington’s Bermuda Triangle of a summer, untroubled by events that might have obliged me to make a note for the later benefit of readers.

Hamish Marshall provided a shot of adrenaline, but of the batsmen who reached double figures, only Borthwick broke the three-an-over sound barrier, that only by a smidgen. So we snoozed happily in the sun, the pitch appearing to join us. Such boundaries as there were came square or backward of square. Wellington’s lead was over 300 by the end of the day, and stretched to 324 on the final morning.

Everything that I had seen over the first three days suggested that 324 at three-and-a-half an over would be too much for Canterbury, and that a serious attempt at a run chase would let Wellington in.

Canterbury won by seven wickets, their 325 made at four-and-a-half an over. Fulton, who might have been expected to lead the charge, was the slowest scorer. Chad Bowes, who had impressed in the T20 at the Basin earlier in the season, made 149 when he was third (and last) out with the score at 236, leaving Henry Nicholls and Cole McConchie to take them home.

I wasn’t there, so don’t know how they managed it, but Patel’s control was obviously missed, his replacement Peter Younghusband bowling eight overs at almost six an over. It is unlikely that the character of the pitch changed much, so it must have come down to attitude and a lot of skill.

It is the huge capacity of first-class cricket to surprise that is one of its chief attractions, no matter if there are calm spells along the way. Let’s hope that next year the weather and schedule makes it possible to enjoy a bit more of it.

Capitulation at the Cake Tin: New Zealand v South Africa ODI

New Zealandv South Africa, ODI, The Cake Tin, 25 February 2017
The set up was as teasing as a Victorian melodrama. Two games, two last-over wins, one to each side. The dramatic tension was maintained throughout the first act, the audience divided as to which way the plot would go. But after the interval we went straight to the final scene, the one where the stage is filled with New Zealand corpses. South Africa won by 159 runs, the most lopsided match I have seen since Southee and McCullum filleted England in the World Cup two years ago.

South Africa won the toss and batted. Their openers were Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock. I first saw Amla as a CricInfo reporter when I covered some of South Africa Under 19s’ tour of New Zealand in 2001. His talent was as abundant as his fielding was inept. Today he went cheaply, caught at mid off from a leading edge having contributed just seven of an opening partnership of 41.

New Zealand fed de Kock’s strength by bowling him lots of short stuff. This isn’t as daft as it sounds, the theory being that the batsman will take more risks within his comfort zone. It didn’t work today though. De Kock made 68 at almost a run a ball. He put on 73 with Faf du Plessis before both went to soft dismissals in the 23^rd over, bowled by Colin de Grandhomme—the South Africans didn’t have a monopoly on the nobiliary particle today.

AB de Villiers was in at No 4 for his last game in Wellington (he’s not hanging around for the tests). I didn’t see the half century he made in the Basin test last time South Africa were here, and the empty 99 in the World Cup against UAE doesn’t count, so I was keen that one of the greats should leave behind a memory.

The regular loss of partners meant that de Villiers did not show us the full range of his inventiveness until the final few overs. He gets lower in the shot than anyone I can think of, which means that the bowler has to be precise to several decimal places in his pitching of the ball. An inch or too full and it might as well be a knee-high full toss; the same the other way becomes the easiest of half volleys. He made 85 from 80 balls and it was a treat.

The way the South Africans went about things from early in their innings suggested that they thought that a total of around 300 was going to be needed on a pitch that shimmered in the afternoon sun, so restricting them to 271 could be considered a good effort by the New Zealand attack.

Trent Boult was outstanding, every bit the leading one-day bowler in the world, conceding only 22 from his first seven overs. Tim Southee was more profligate. Mitch Santner was also very good with a mid-innings spell of seven overs going for just 28. Lockie Ferguson came in for Ish Sodhi, but did nothing to justify the selection. It is the nature of fast bowlers that they are hit and miss early in their careers as they learn that sheer speed is sometimes not enough. Today, the quicker he bowled, the quicker it came off the bat. He will have benefitted from studying the work of Kagiso Rabada later in the day.

But New Zealand’s best bowler, statistically at least, was the man least likely to be, Colin de Grandhomme, whose ambling medium pace accounted for du Plessis and de Kock. Having fought off a gang of muggers, they were felled by a handbag-wielding granny. He got de Kock with a long hop, but that was the worst ball he bowled. De Grandhomme made the best of a pitch that that was more balanced between bat and ball than most of us thought, bowling accurately and cannily. I am as enthusiastic about him as an ODI player as I am critical of his presence in the test team.

So how did Neesham, the all-rounder, do with the ball? Reader, we will never know, as he did not bowl. It appears that for Williamson, Neesham is a weapon of last resort, thrown in when all else has failed. He got away with it today, shuffling the five bowlers astutely (he didn’t put himself on either), but that is not a sustainable strategy for the one-day game.

Was 271 enough for South Africa? Most of us thought not, but as it turned out they could have gone to the pictures instead of facing the last 20 overs and still have won comfortably. I have often been critical of how the outcome of T20 games is too often obvious by an early stage of the second innings, but that can happen in 50-over cricket too, and so it did here.

Tom Latham would need the Hubble telescope to see his form at the moment. It should be David Attenborough rather than Ian Smith commentating when Latham bats, so closely do his innings resemble the pursuit of a limping gazelle by a pride of lionesses, the grizzly outcome inevitable. Today’s seven-ball duck left him with a series aggregate of two from 29 deliveries. There is almost always a penalty for giving the gloves to a specialist batsman. Latham’s keeping is satisfactory, though he did miss a straightforward stumping today. Let us hope that the test performance of New Zealand’s best opener since Mark Richardson is not the price to be paid.

Brownlie went caught behind off Rabada, so at 11 for two, Williamson and Taylor were together, usually as reassuring as a log fire in winter. Yet today it was as if they had something better to do and had sent a tribute band instead. They looked like Williamson and Taylor, but the music wasn’t the same. Both faced 40 balls, for 23 and 18 respectively, miserable strike rates by their standards. I often write that it was a surprise when Williamson got out, but today it wasn’t. Towards the end of their partnership both began to flail at the ball, so effective was the containment of the South African attack. Taylor was leg before soon after and seemed relieved, hurrying past Neil Broom at the other end so that there was no chance of being talked into a review. The rest was a procession, the last six wickets falling for 64.

As ever, there was talk about the pitch, on which 271 was a better score than at first appeared, and from which the South Africans got more help than New Zealand. But sometimes we look too closely at the pitch instead of the quality of the bowling. For various reasons the South Africans are missing Steyn, Morkel, Philander and Abbott, and chose not to play Morris, who has been taking wickets for fun so far on the tour. Yet the attack that took the field was superb.

The all-Kent opening team of Rabada and Parnell (two and five first-class appearances, seven years apart) was outstanding. The last time I saw Rabada he was attempting to coax some life out of the pitch at Tunbridge Wells, a task better suited to a spiritualist than a fast bowler. He is fast, accurate and—best of all—highly intelligent. Parnell was probing and accurate. In the first ten overs, between them they removed the openers and established the frustration of Williamson and Taylor.

The second wave was even better. Andile Phehlukwayo has something about him. He is not yet the finished article, but looks as if he absolutely belongs at the top level. He kept a cool head when bashing a couple of sixes to win the first game of the series. Today, he removed Williamson and Broom and conceded only 12 in his five-over spell. At the other end, Dwaine Pretorious was even meaner with two for five from five. Between them they put the match beyond New Zealand.

The home team came back strongly in the fourth game, winning by seven wickets with five overs to spare, thanks to a sublime unbeaten 180 by Martin Guptill. However at Eden Park in the series decider, another outstanding bowling performance gave South Africa a three-two series victory.