New Zealand v England, 2nd Test, Basin Reserve, Wellington, 14–18 March 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-v-england-2013/engine/current/match/569244.html

A Basin Reserve Test between New Zealand and England must always be worthy of report. For us in the South Pacific it is the nearest we get to the G on Boxing Day, or the Ashes at Lord’s. But in truth the second Test was a touch mundane. I was there from lunch on the second day until the rain sluiced the game away on the fourth afternoon.

The encouraging performance in Dunedin had not done much to make us locals any more cheerful about New Zealand’s prospects. Five years ago a victory in Hamilton was quickly offset by a resounding loss here, and it was hard to find anybody who would stake more than a few cents on anything other than a repeat here. When I arrived, Trott and Compton had both departed having scored centuries in the manner of accountants totting up the petty cash.

Splendid achievement as any Test century is, I did not feel deprived on account of not being there to see them. A century by Compton is much like Christmas dinner. As enjoyable as one may be, you don’t feel like sitting through another one a week later. There remained a feeling that the New Zealand attack may have done the Australians an unintended favour (all favours done to Australians by New Zealanders are unintentional) in establishing Compton at the top of the order.

The immediate appeal when I burst through the CS Dempster Gate was that Pietersen was in. Purveyor of fifteen kinds of foolishness he may be, but Kevin Pietersen is a wonderful, innovative, unpredictable batsman who any cricketing cognoscente would want to watch. It was therefore disappointing when he tapped a catch to Fulton off Martin a few overs into the afternoon. That three of the top five fell to catches by Fulton at mid on/off suggests that some the English batsmen remained afflicted by the laxity that had been their downfall in the first innings in Dunedin. There were plenty of scornful remarks about Pietersen’s frequent absences from the field later in the game, but it turns out that he was struggling with the knee injury that kept him out of the Auckland Test and all cricket until the start of the Ashes series at the earliest.

Matt Prior provided the most watchable batting of the day—as he had in Dunedin and was to do in Auckland—bustling along to 82 at not far short of a run a ball. Around him there was subsidence, if not collapse, as the last seven wickets managed 198 between them from a starting point of 267 for three.

The Basin was close to full on Saturday for the most enjoyable day of the Test, even if it largely consisted of New Zealand’s futile attempt to avoid the follow on. Starting the day on 66 for three, the home side had to scratch together another 200, a target that should have been well within their ability on a pitch so friendly that had it been a Labrador it would have licked the batsmen on the chin. After the early loss of Williamson and Brownlie, McCullum and Watling put on a hundred before the captain was sixth out with 77 still needed to deprive Cook of the option to ask New Zealand to bat again.

Out strode Tim Southee, apparently having just finished his copy of Brain Dead Batting the Broad Way. Finn set a trap so obvious that the heffalump with the lowest IQ in the herd would have spotted it and taken avoiding action. Two men back on the boundary and a short ball almost at once. Southee obliged by hooking it straight to the squarer of the two. Watling and Martin (who batted capably again) took New Zealand to within 30 of the target, but Wagner and Boult could not survive long enough to reach it.

The top order was more assured in the second innings, reaching 162 for two by the time the rain brought an end to events on an episodic fourth day. There was no play, or even the remotest prospect of it, on the final day, which my Whiteladies Road correspondent spent in Te Papa, our excellent national museum on the Wellington waterfront.

The action on the field was not the totality of the Basin’s charms; I bought five books for $10 at the second-hand book stall, three by John Arlott. There was the great man’s account of the 1959 season and, more intriguingly, of the MCC tour of South Africa of 1948/9, which Arlott covered for the BBC. He returned imbued with a hatred of the racial divide that remained with him for the rest of his life. It will be interesting to see how much of this comes through in the book. There was a spin off from the TV series Arlott and Trueman On Cricket, which enlivened the Saturday mornings of my Blean correspondent and myself in the spring of ’75. Also two of cricket’s best-known autobiographies: Jim Laker’s Over To Me, which provoked Surrey to sack their greatest spin bowler; and Don Bradman’s end-of-career Farewell to Cricket.

Mike Denness

It was on the 5 am radio news here in New Zealand that Mike Denness had died. I thought it fitting that the passing of the captain who received six of the sixteen trophies that Kent has won in its 143-year history was regarded as internationally newsworthy (even if the announcer did mangle the pronunciation of his name). But of course it was as ex-England captain that his death was being noted.

It is Mike Denness’ fate to be the Alec Douglas-Home of English cricket, the Scot who wasn’t quite up to national leadership (it was Douglas-Home who presented Denness with his Man of the Match medal in the Gillette Cup Final of 1967[i]). Many of the obituaries have made the point that Denness’ record as England captain is better than might be supposed. He won more Tests than he lost, and had a batting average only a smidgen under 40, better, as one online Kent loyalist pointed out, than Atherton’s or Hussain’s.  

Mike Denness was appointed as England captain for the 1974 tour of the West Indies despite not having been selected for the Test team in the 1973 English season. He succeeded Raymond Illingworth, who had led England to a two-nil defeat against the West Indies including an innings-and-226 run hammering at Lord’s—I was there for the first day, which featured a century from Rohan Kanhai, one of the finest I have seen[ii]. There were two county captains assured of their places in the England XI, but they were Geoffrey Boycott and Tony Greig, neither Establishment men. So Denness, the most successful county captain of the day, it was.

With the lack of tact and sensitivity for which the rulers of English cricket have been famed through the ages, the announcement was made while Denness and Illingworth were leading their counties in a Championship match at Folkestone. Illingworth escaped the press pack waiting for a quote on the pavilion steps by climbing out of the dressing room window and shinning down a drainpipe.

England were outplayed for much of the series but a win in the final Test at Port-of-Spain salvaged an unlikely overall draw, ironically due to the brilliance of Boycott with the bat and Greig with the ball. That he had effectively kept Denness in the captaincy so upset Boycott that after the first Test of 1974 he absented himself from the England team for more than three years. Such a team man.

An easy home summer meant that Denness was guaranteed what Colin Cowdrey never achieved: the captaincy of a tour to Australia. He set out with apparently realistic hopes of keeping the Ashes that Illingworth had won in 1971 and retained a year later. Most of the previews wrote off Dennis Lillee, who had not played a Test since suffering a crippling back injury in the Caribbean 18 months before. None mentioned Jeff Thomson, an erratic quick with a bizarre slingy action who had bowled a wicketless 17 overs for 100 runs against Pakistan in his solitary Test appearance.

There was no clue that the 1974/75 Ashes series would establish Lillee and Thomson as one of the great fast-bowling partnerships. They blew Denness and his team away. It was, remember, the last helmetless Ashes series in Australia. So wretched was Denness’ form that he dropped himself for the fourth Test. So it is that in any game of word association “Denness” will produce “Lillee and Thomson” or “Ashes humiliation” not “Kent’s best team” as it should do.

He was given one more chance in the first of the four-Test series that followed the World Cup in England the following summer (back-to-back Ashes series are not a new idea) but, despite a dodgy weather forecast, put Australia in when he won the toss. This, in the time of uncovered pitches, handed the Aussies the game, as well as condemning young Graham Gooch to a pair on debut. That was it for Mike Denness in Tests.

Mike Denness’ Test debut was also mine. I was in the Vauxhall Stand at the Oval as he walked out to bat against New Zealand in 1969.[iii] He came in with England at 88 for one in reply to New Zealand’s 150 (Underwood 6 for 41). It was one of the most tortured innings I have seen. This free-flowing stylist made two from 43 balls, playing and missing repeatedly against Cunis, Taylor and Motz. It was a relief when he was caught behind off Cunis after three-quarters of an hour.

Perhaps it was as well for Kent that he did not make an immediate impact on international cricket. It meant that he was available for most of the five seasons (six if you count 1971 when he deputised for the ill Cowdrey for most of the season) for which he was captain. It was Kent’s Golden Age, and for those of us who watched it, especially those fortunate enough to be young and impressionable, it was quite wonderful. A team of very good cricketers, and two great ones, played the game as it should be played, and made it seem beautiful.

Mike Denness led by example. As a batsman he always had an attacking attitude, and had the technique to make 17,000 runs for Kent, mostly in the top three, though he was also good against spin. As I always write about the batsmen of the uncovered pitches era, add ten to Denness’ first-class career average for Kent of 32.90 for comparison with the batsmen of today. And he was one of the best fielders—mostly in the covers—in a team that was ahead of its time in this part of the game.

It was a disappointment that the three Championship wins of the seventies came in the seasons immediately before and after his captaincy, but six one-day titles in five years kept us happy. Then they sacked him.

I have written before about the mysterious case of the sacking of Mike Denness, which Clive Ellis did a good job of unravelling in Trophies and Tribulations:

http://mylifeincricketscorecards.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/trophies-and-tribulations-forty-years.html

Denness spent the last years of his career in Essex, and it was a pleasure to be at Lord’s when he was part of the team that won that county’s first trophy, the 55 over competition, in 1979. He had made his peace with Kent and was on the committee for a number of years, no doubt making sure that players were treated better by the men in suits than they had been in his day. At his death he was in the final days of his term as President of the club, having succeeded John Shepherd in that role.

Too many of the golden Kent team have died before their time: Cowdrey, Bob Woolmer, Dave Nicholls, Stuart Leary and Mike Denness’ opening partner Brian Luckhurst. My, they stole singles as easily as Scousers nicking hubcaps. As my Blean correspondent wrote on Facebook this morning “part of our youth has gone”.

Here’s to the softly spoken Scot with the exquisite cover drive.

 

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[i] http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/29/29107.html

 

[ii] http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/33/33728.html

 

[iii] http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/30/30442.html

 

New Zealand v England, 1st Test, University Oval, Dunedin, 6–10 March 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-v-england-2013/engine/current/match/569243.html

A midsummer dawn, June 1978. Catching the first train on the north Kent line; urging the tube faster around the Central Line to make a 125 from Paddington to Taunton; arriving to find standing room only for the 55-over semi-final between Somerset and Kent. No matter. They played for an hour before the rain set in.

For 35 years the 212 miles between Herne Bay and Taunton remained my personal record for travel to a washed-out day’s cricket. Not any more.

The present day. Take off from Wellington as the sun rises, change at Christchurch, a lift cadged from Dunedin airport (curiously located some distance from the city), and a hurried walk to the University Oval, the world’s most southerly Test ground. More portliness, less hair, but the same sharp anticipation of a day’s cricket in a new place, the same fatalism when the first drop of rain hits the ground the second I walk through the gate. 472 miles for a washout. New record.

No matter. My Whiteladies Road Correspondent, just arrived from the frozen north, was sheltering under a tree, and we repaired to a bar to dry out and swap old stories.

The second day provided rich consolation. It was one of the best—and certainly the most surprising—day’s Test cricket that I have seen. My correspondent remarked on the downbeat mood of the locals as far as the cricket was concerned compared to his last visit, in 2008. I explained that we had become as accustomed to failure as an Italian field-marshall and were simply providing verbal ballast against the tide of disappointment. There was relief that Brendon McCullum had put England in. We would settle in and watch England bat for a couple of days. At least there would be no New Zealand collapse today.

Southee induced Compton to play on in the third over, but nothing suggested that either the pitch or the bowlers would be a source of English distress. But on his first day as captain in a home Test (and in his home town) McCullum was Midas. Every bowling change seemed to take a wicket, every field change an irresistable lure for the batsman to hit the ball straight to the relocated fielder.

His first bowling change, an obvious one, replaced Southee with Wagner. Unaccountably, Alistair Cook slapped Wagner’s second delivery straight to Rutherford at point. Next ball Wagner welcomed Kevin Pietersen with the ball of the day, one of full length that swung in late to trap him leg before.

Bell and Trott settled in for an hour until Bell drove straight at Rutherford at short extra cover, a third wicket for Wagner. Was the ball stopping a little or was it simply the Englishmen’s inbred suspicion of abroad that causes them to start away series so poorly?

Another McCullum bowling change, another wicket. Left-armer Boult pushed one across Root, who edged to second slip. Eighty for five at lunch. Enough to overcome local reticence? No. There were two lines of argument. First, that Prior or Trott, probably both, would be good for a century in the afternoon. Second, that the pitch had devils (unspecified) in it, and that New Zealand would struggle to make three figures. Three fours off successive Boult deliveries by Prior suggested that the former was the more likely explanation, but it was time for an unlikely hero to step forward.

Bruce “Buck” Martin was selected for the New Zealand twelve against Australia at Hamilton in 2000, but was omitted on the first morning. The selectors did not call again until the tour of South Africa early this year, but Martin was not picked for a Test. So here he was, 32 years old and 14 seasons into his career, on Test debut. Buck played for Northern Districts when I was CricInfo’s man at Seddon Park, so I was happy to be there when he finally bowled with the fern on his jersey, but a mite concerned that the step up to international level would expose him.

I need not have worried, not today at least. He sent both potential centurions back to the rooms, within four balls of each other. Prior became Martin’s first Test victim when he top-edged a cut to Williamson at backward point. Trott followed in Martin’s next over, another top edge, well caught by Boult, running in from short fine leg.

His third wicket owed much to McCullum‘s new-found ability to travel about 30 seconds into the future before returning to the present to set the field accordingly. Brownlie was pushed back to the mid-wicket boundary; Broad hit the very next ball—a long hop— straight to him. It is difficult, watching Broad bat, to work out how he could possibly have scored 160 in a Test, as he did against Pakistan at Lord’s in 2010, such is the absence of worthwhile brain activity in his approach.

Buck Martin was jubilant. Players who come to the international game late usually savour it all the more, the perspective of experience allowing them to appreciate their time in the sun knowing that it will be short.

Finn and Anderson were obdurate for a while, but England were all out for 167, 300 fewer than the visiting supporters were hoping for, and 700 fewer than the home fans feared.

Martin and Wagner had four wickets each. Wagner was playing his first Test in his adopted homeland after a protracted qualifying period, so two patient bowlers had good days. The New Zealand bowling was certainly tidy and disciplined, but most of the England batsmen got out to bad shots.

What had happened before tea was, to we locals at least, astonishing. But what occurred in the final session suggested that credulity had an elasticated waistband, so far was it stretched. For at the close New Zealand were 131 for (and here’s the thing) none, the recalled Peter Fulton and debutant Hamish Rutherford untroubled, indeed  dominant. We wandered away from the University Oval much like kids leaving Disneyland for the first time, our emotional reservoirs drained by a day on which something wondrous was to be found around every corner.

On day three, just to confirm that it had not all been a dream, Fulton completed his first Test fifty for seven years, before being caught behind off Anderson. Fulton’s innings was all the more admirable for being against type: his strike rate was 33, about half what the rate at which he scores in domestic cricket.

At the other end Rutherford was secure, then dominant. He was particularly strong through the covers, invariably a sign of class. There were three sixes, all off the pedestrian Panesar, and 22 fours. He reached 171 before chipping Anderson to midwicket.

Rutherford apart, the most relishable New Zealand batting came from McCullum, who always bats as if he is seeing it like Bradman, and at the moment actually is. Three fours from one over off Finn early on was a statement of intent. Early on day four there were three sixes within six balls off Broad and Anderson. This combination dismissed McCullum for 74 (from only 59 deliveries) when Anderson held on to under a skyer.

Buck Martin’s fine debut continued with 41 from 63 balls. McCullum declared when Martin was dismissed. The lead was 293 and the best part of two days remained.

For New Zealanders, the rest of the day was a matter of watching Hope move steadily towards the horizon, disappearing over it by the close, at which point England were 234 for one. Though there was little to cause the pulse to race, it was satisfying viewing, chiefly for the enjoyment of the technical mastery of Alistair Cook, out shortly before the close for 116. As much as any batsman I have seen, Cook has refined batting to a state of technical purity. Loose balls are scored off, good balls defended. Here, he seemed slow, but scored his runs at not much short of three an over. Watching Hutton must have been something like this. Besides, nobody has seen an England player score his 24th Test century before.

At the other end, Nick Compton reached his maiden Test century shortly before the close. His was a more dogged effort, but impressive enough for someone on a pair and with the press raising questions about the genuineness of his credentials as a Test batsman.

It was cold though. Not for nothing is Dunedin known as the Edinburgh of the south. My Waikato correspondent had joined us for the weekend, and, with little prospect of excitement at the University Oval, we decided to explore Dunedin on the fifth day. My correspondent was concerned that we would miss something remarkable, and that she would be left with a shell of a man as a result. I always bear in mind John Arlott’s cautionary tale of skipping a day of an up-country match in South Africa in 1948/9, only to find that he had missed Denis Compton scoring the fastest triple century of all time.

There was no need for such concerns here. Steve Finn, taking his night-watchman job far too seriously, ground out 56 over two sessions. I arrived at tea for the most interesting hour of the day, during which three wickets fell, but it was too late to be of any significance.

The University Oval is an impressive venue, just right for Test cricket. Though it is a comfortable walk from the city centre, it has a rural feel to it, tree-lined with green hills nearby. I was reminded a little of Mote Park, Maidstone, one of my favourite grounds. It was a pleasant place to watch a good Test match, even if the weather and the placidity of the pitch combined to produce anti-climax.

 

 

 

 

 

New Zealand v England, Third T20 International, the Cake Tin, Wellington, 15 February 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-v-england-2013/engine/current/match/569239.html

“It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand”—Brian Stimpson (played by John Cleese) in the 1987 film Clockwise.

Cleese (a Somerset supporter by the way) might have been speaking for New Zealand cricket fans. Our hearts were brim-full of hope as we made our way to the Cake Tin for the decider in the three-game T20 series against the visitors from the frozen north. England won the first game, in Auckland, resoundingly. But in Hamilton, New Zealand bounced back like Tigger, to take the game by 55 runs. That’s the nature of T20 cricket, of course: bingo in coloured clothing.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours all those hopes drained into the harbour as England dominated the game as it did the seas at the height of Empire.

Among the optimistic throng were my Waikato Correspondent (who had presented me with the best Valentine’s Day gift ever—a 1961 Wisden) and (this was something a thought that I would never live to see) my Island Bay Correspondent who has previously regarded the prospect of an evening’s cricket with the enthusiasm of a tuna with a booking at a sushi restaurant.

Stuart Broad put New Zealand in and, together with Steve Finn, subjected openers Hamish Rutherford and Martin Guptill to a disciplined and hostile opening spell, with plenty of short stuff and a tight line that offered little leeway for shots square of the wicket.

The assembled correspondents got a shock when Rutherford drove the first boundary of the innings: it was then we discovered that we were only a few metres away from six flame throwers that shot towers of fire into the air in celebration of every New Zealand boundary. On another night this would have been a welcome aid to spectator comfort; I have worked up a fair Captain Oates impersonation watching under the Cake Tin’s lights over the years. But this was another balmy day in Wellington’s long hot summer and it was pleasant to sit in the open air.

Rutherford gloved a short ball to short fine leg off Broad in the fourth over, but Brendon McCullum and Guptill found the change bowlers easier to score from. By the end of the ninth over New Zealand were 60 for one, with plenty of wickets left to push towards the 175 or so that we expected would be necessary to give the home team the advantage when England replied.

That was when the trouble started. Wickets fell regularly as the English attack bowled with intelligence and discipline. The flame throwers were unused from the thirteenth to sixteenth overs, as no boundaries were hit in this period, a musical with no songs. Guptill remained, but never got going. When he was out in the penultimate over he had scored 59 from 55 balls with only three boundaries, nowhere near the going rate in this form of the game.

Broad (three for 15) and Finn (18 off four overs) were outstanding. New Zealand batsmen have little experience of hostile, accurate short bowling and find it difficult to deal with. This does not bode well for the weeks to come. Kent’s new captain (I wore my Kent shirt in his honour) James Tredwell was proficient with one for 31. Jade Dernbach was expensive but interesting with his back-of-the-hand variations and took three wickets. The surprise package was Joe Root, the next-big-thing as a batsman, and a phantom off spinner, as Ross Taylor discovered. Taylor put Root in the stand over deep mid-wicket, but failed to spot that Root had held the next ball back when he tried a repeat and was caught by Bairstow on the boundary.

The fielding was almost impeccable, the spilling of a hard chance at mid off by Finn the only lapse. New Zealand finished on 139 for eight. We knew that it was not enough, but did not perceive by how very much it was not enough.

Alex Hales and Michael Lumb, both of Nottinghamshire, opened the batting. The last time there was such an uneven contest between the English and the locals in these parts, one side had guns and the other did not. Hales hit two fours in the first over off Boult as a sign of things to come. Mitchell McClenaghan started with a maiden, but Lumb hit the first two balls of his next over for six.

New Zealand had the chance of a breakthrough when Hales skyed a balled in from of square leg. Taylor was closest. Elliott set off at pace from the outfield and could have taken it reasonably comfortably. But Brendon McCullum had has eye on the ball, and the intent and singularity of purpose of a shopper at the January sales making a beeline for a little Versace number at 75% off. Nothing was going to get in his way. Both players who might have taken the catch wisely placed their own preservation above the needs of their team and stayed out of the road, just as a sensible person would not attempt to reason with a charging bull. McCullum executed a dive with pike and twist as he leapt past Elliott, but the ball dropped through his gloves to the ground.

That was it, pretty much. England raced to their target, reaching it in the thirteenth over. Lumb completed the carnage with a six onto the roof of the stadium, a smite even bigger than Martin Guptill’s against South Africa last year. Lumb made 53 from 34 balls, Hales 80 from 42. Lumb hit five sixes, Hales four. The astonishing thing is that both players were on the plane the following day, not needed for the ODI series that followed. England have Cook and Trott ready to replace them.

The flame throwers, reserved for New Zealand wickets, were still throughout the second half of the match, so it was an energy-efficient defeat, at least.

A one-day series of three games follows, and I will be in Dunedin when the Test series begins there on 6 March, despair notwithstanding.

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, fourth day of four, 3 February 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-domestic-2012/engine/current/match/580745.html

376 runs is plenty to score on the final day of any game, even with all ten wickets still standing. That was Wellington’s task at the start of another day so gorgeous that it had a modelling contract and was driving around in a sports car with its footballer boyfriend.

In the home team’s favour was a pitch that might have been prepared by Mary Poppins, perfect in every way as it was, from a batsman’s point of view at least. Wellington’s sole spinner, Luke Woodcock, had been little used on Saturday. Today, almost three-quarters of the overs were bowled by Canterbury’s three spinners. Neither approach was right or wrong. Whatever the style of the bowler, the surface offered no charity and wickets had to be mined for, using guile and accuracy as tools.

Of course, this means that the pitch was far from perfect. A cricket pitch for a first-class match should be in a state of constant evolution from first ball to last, presenting different challenges from day to day, even from session to session. This one had all the variety of Scottish cuisine.

Left-arm fast-medium bowler Ryan McCone made an early breakthrough when Josh Brodie edged an outswinger to keeper David Fulton, who came into the match through the revolving door installed at the Basin by the New Zealand selectors (see yesterday’s post). Fulton is the brother of Canterbury captain Peter Fulton (but no relation of his namesake the former Kent captain), and should he never play first-class cricket again, will become a quiz question as this one day will constitute his entire career.

Wellington skipper and first-innings centurion Stephen Murdoch soon followed, unaccountably leaving a straight one from trundler Brett Findlay that removed his off stump. Decent fellow as I am sure Murdoch is, nobody was sorry to see him go, as his departure brought in Jesse Ryder. This was the point of the day as far as everyone was concerned. If he was there for three hours he would win the game for Wellington, if dismissed cheaply the game was as good as Canterbury’s.

Ryder was soon away, swatting a six over mid wicket off Findlay, then cover driving a four in the same over. He was as harsh on Todd Astle, and it was a surprise that Fulton persisted with the leg spinner. Out of the blue, Astle tossed one right up and Ryder’s drive turned it into a yorker, which removed his leg stump. Some spectators were out of the gate before Ryder had left the field. I braced myself for an adjectival outburst and the thud of bat against dressing shed wall, but none came. Later that day it emerged that Ryder had been signed up by the Delhi Dilettantes (I may not have the name quite right) in the IPL for NZ$300,000 plus, which would bring equitability to the most combustible temperament.

The general feeling was that only the formalities remained and that by mid-afternoon we would be strolling around the harbour enjoying Wellington’s apparent relocation on the Mediterranean. Not for the last time today, the home team displayed fortitude and fought back to a point where the game was close to level pegging. Michael Papps and Grant Elliott added 52 by lunch, 236 short of the target.

McCone, switching to the southern end immediately after the interval, trapped Papps lbw with an inswinger in his first over. McCone’s ability to produce a fine delivery at the start of a spell was to be crucial later in the afternoon. Papps made 65, continuing his good form. Like Fulton, he is being touted as a Test opener, but the same doubts about his class apply.

Luke Woodcock edged an Astle googly to slip and thoughts turned once more to gelato on the waterfront. For the second time, Elliott formed half of a match-levelling partnership, this time with Harry Boam, returning to the game after a day off on Saturday (see “revolving door”, above). After a brief period of consolidation, they too went on the attack—a draw would end what little chance Wellington had in the Plunket Shield as much as a defeat would.

The biggest surprise was not that the sixth-wicket partnership proved so durable, but that a crowd of about 200 was there to enjoy it in the sun. It is not often that the word “crowd” can be reasonably deployed in a report on a Plunket Shield match, and while it was not exactly Woodstock, there was a hint of an atmosphere around the pickets during the afternoon.

Fulton placed strong reliance on Todd Astle, who bowled with only brief respites at the northern end. Astle played a Test during the recent tour of Sri Lanka and is often mentioned for the spinning all-rounder’s role against England in the absence of the injured Vettori. Despite his dismissal of Ryder, Astle was unimpressive. He bowled far too much loose stuff—three successive full tosses followed by a long hop in one over—which he largely got away with here, but that would be punished severely by competent Test batsmen.

However, Astle did break the Elliott/Boam partnership just as it appeared to be pushing Wellington ahead. Elliott top-edged a sweep for 91 with the stand worth exactly 100. Another 125 were needed with four wickets left.

For most of the first two sessions slow left-armer Roneel Hira was ignored by his captain, at one stage having bowled only four overs in contrast to 13 of the non-descript off spin of Tim Johnston. With Boam booming and Kuggeleijn making a confident start with four, four and six from the last three balls of an Astle over, Fulton turned to Hira almost in desperation. He struck almost at once, beating Kuggeleijn through the air and bowling him.

The ever-aggressive Mark Gillespie, who, whatever the situation, bats with the demeanour of a man who has been served a plate of bad oysters in an expensive restaurant[1], put on another 41 with Boam, taking Wellington to within 63 of their target. Hira then produced another clever delivery, one that went on with the arm to have Boam lbw. Boam departed and twenty seconds after disappearing from view treated us to the dressing room explosion that we had expected from Ryder. An oath measured on the Richter Scale and work for the plasterers today, I think.

Ili Tugaga continued the attack, but did so brainlessly, holing out off the impressive Hira for two. Last man Tipene Friday came out to join Gillespie with 57 still required. Unlike Tugaga, Friday focused on defence, at which he looked well-organised, and left the run scoring to Gillespie, who started turning down singles, a strategy that I usually deplore, but which was vindicated here.

A four and a six off Hira was followed by a maiden by Astle to Friday. Twenty came from Hira’s next over, including two sixes high over the head of the man on the mid-wicket boundary. Friday resisted another over from Astle, and with 21 needed Fulton brought back McCone from the southern end. His first delivery settled it. A slow yorker, audacious in conception and perfectly executed. It clipped Gillespie’s leg stump and gave Canterbury victory by 20 runs.

The cricket was not always top class, but as a match it was wonderful. There’s nothing like a well-contested game of first-class cricket and when it is staged at the Basin in the sun it is a glimpse of Paradise. Auckland visit next weekend, by which time we will all be growing olives and oranges in the capital.

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[1] My Waikato correspondent points out that I use food images quite often, and she has a point.

Wellington v Canterbury, Plunket Shield, third day of four, 2 February 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-domestic-2012/engine/current/match/580745.html

It is summer in Wellington. Proper, Cider With Rosie, lazy-hazy-crazy, eggs-frying-on-the-pavement summer. Day after day of blue skies and ice cream. A Test match of a summer, not the T20 substitutes we have had for the past couple of years. Where better to be than the Basin, and for a first-class game too?

Five others agreed with me. We half-dozen constituted the crowd when the first ball was bowled at 10.30 (though the possibility that a couple of the others had wandered in for a stroll, fallen asleep in the sun and awoke surprised to find a cricket match going on cannot be discounted).

Canterbury began 43 without loss in their second innings, a lead of 16. Peter Fulton and George Worker were the openers. Fulton is being touted for the troublesome opener’s spot in the Test side, along with most of the rest of the male population under 50. He is scoring runs: 94 in the first innings here, and has previous experience, of ten Tests. I was going to write “previous form” but this would be misleading as an average of 20 does not constitute form.

The problem with the New Zealand batting line up is that, Ross Taylor apart, it consists entirely of men who would be better off at No 5 or 6 on the order. I would move Taylor up to No 3, followed by Brownlie, Williamson, Guptill (who has not made it as an opener, but is too good to drop) and Watling. This would leave McCullum to open with whoever is in form and appears up for it when the first Test comes along.

Fulton moved smoothly enough to his second fifty of the match and, with some fluent striking, demonstrated why he is being spoken of as an answer to New Zealand’s opener question. However, he also showed why he is not the right answer. He favours the onside a little too much, almost giving Gillespie a caught-and-bowled as he tried to work one from too far outside off. Then he was out, loosely driving Tipene Friday to backward point when set. But is there anyone better?

Fulton’s dismissal apart, Canterbury were untroubled in the morning session, reaching 158 for one at lunch. Some spectators, looking at the card in the paper, might have asked “why don’t they put Harry Boam on? He took three wickets in the first innings.” Boam could not bowl because he is no longer playing in this game. But he will be playing tomorrow. This curious state of affairs is because of the regulations allowing the Black Caps management to take players in and out of matches at their whim (the regulations don’t actually say “whim” but it’s a fair summary). So here the two keepers, Luke Ronchi of Wellington and Tom Latham of Canterbury, are being withdrawn on the fourth day so that they can travel to Whangarei to play in the tour opener against an England XI (this is the correct term for a non-international fixture by the way). I can just about put up with that, albeit it sneeringly.

But Grant Elliott swanning in fashionably late on the third day (which is why Boam dropped out today) is intolerable. The powers that be seem to think that our international cricketers need to be rested as much as the average granny, and that Elliott could not stand four days under the harsh Wellington sun a mere week after returning from South Africa. At least Elliott gets two days’ play. James Franklin, present today, gets no game time at all.

Jeetan Patel was also at the Basin, but did not play, for different reasons. He has taken a lot of criticism for his less-than-steadfast approach to the South African quicks. In the First World War he would have been shot for cowardice. But so what? He is picked as a spinner. Patel is more highly valued in Warwickshire, for whom he was a key member of their Championship-winning side last year. With Vettori out for the Tests, New Zealand need all their spinners to be doing as much bowling as possible. In fact, the more all the international players can play the better, but this would be dismissed as laughably old-fashioned by John Buchanan and his acolytes, I have no doubt.

After lunch Mark Gillespie returned having bowled a long, tidy, if unthreatening spell in the morning. He was rewarded with the wicket of Stewart, bowled by an outswinger. On the boundary in front of me Gillespie explained to Wellington coach Jamie Siddons that he was swinging it both ways, possibly at the same time. He had an outstanding Test at the Basin against South Africa last year, but has not featured since, because of injury and the mysterious way in which the national selectors move at times. His day may have gone, though he would do a job if called upon against England.

Dean Brownlie, the best batsman in the recent Test debacle in South Africa, was next in. I had not seen much of Brownlie, so was looking forward to his innings. He proceeded tidily to 25, when he top-edged a hook off Tipene Friday and was caught at mid off.

At the other end, George Worker moved towards the second century of his career efficiently, if edgily at times. No doubt he will be propelled into the Test team by some pundits. His innings was not that compelling, but he may be a contender soon enough. At 107 he edged Friday to slip where Jesse Ryder—who else?—took a spectacular catch, the best bit of cricket of the day. My plan to seduce Ryder into an international return by way of fast food appears to have failed. His catches, as well as his runs, will be missed.

Tipene Friday removed Brent Findlay next ball, finishing with a career-best four for 67. Friday makes good use of a tall and solid frame. He bowls off a 20-pace run up, which only gets properly under way after ten paces. Sorting this out will add more pace, which, at a guess, stands around the 130 kph mark at the moment. There is plenty of promise here.

At tea Canterbury were 252 for five. This left the South Islanders with a tricky choice. These sides are the bottom of the table, and need a win to maintain an interest in the competition. Canterbury needed to push on in order to give themselves all day tomorrow to bowl Wellington out on a placid pitch, but in doing so could not afford to lose wickets and leave a target of under 300, or the game would be thrown away. In the final session they were rewarded for being positive. First Latham maintained momentum impressively with 57 from 72 deliveries before holing out to Tugaga on the mid-wicket boundary off Elliott. Astle followed for 37 leaving things evenly poised again. Enter Roneel Hira, who set about the Wellington attack to to the extent of a career-high 57, from just 44 balls, including the only three sixes hit all day. He put on an unbeaten 82 with Ryan McCone, enabling Fulton to declare to leave Wellington a target of 384 to win and a tricky 20 minutes to survive tonight.

Michael Papps and Josh Brodie were there at the end, but Matt McEwan struck Brodie with a short-pitched delivery and looked the most likely to take a wicket.

It was a hugely enjoyable day in the sun. There’s nothing as good as a well-contested first-class game. Wellington need 371 more tomorrow on a Mother Theresa of a pitch, so benign is it. Should be a cracking day.

Wellington v Auckland, T20 Preliminary Final, Basin Reserve, 18 January 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/589241.html

In the city that is the home of The Hobbit the chirpy little local people overcame the evil force from the big bad world outside: Wellington beat Auckland in the preliminary final of the T20.

I have written before of the wisdom of getting to cricket matches in good time:
http://mylifeincricketscorecards.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/random-thoughts-on-ashes-adelaide.html

The importance of this principle was manifest once more at the Basin on Friday. Indolent spectators lacking in moral backbone who wandered in late after the third over missed the best that this game had to offer: a 17-ball 46 by Jesse Ryder. Twenty came from the first over, bowled by the unfortunate Matt Quinn, with three fours, and a six kept in the ground at long on only by one of the pohutukawas. Giving the new ball to the inexperienced Quinn was to ask a boy bugler to lead the charge, particularly when the cunning and experienced Andre Adams was available.

At the other end, Ben Orton knew that his job was to get off strike as soon as possible, which he did with a single off the first ball, bowled by the experienced left-armer Michael Bates. In the rest of the over Ryder cover drove three boundaries, one off the back foot and two off the front, the second lofted over the infield. Three jewels of shots that would have looked shiny and beautiful in any game of cricket. Ryder did not play a stroke today that was predetermined; each was a response to the ball that was bowled.

Unbelievably, Auckland captain Gareth Hopkins persisted with Quinn from the Vance Stand End. Quinn looks very young and I seriously considered ringing the child protection people at this point. Two fours and a towering six onto the bank were the inevitable result, but from the last ball of the over Ryder was caught on the square-leg boundary; had it carried two metres further it would have been a 17-ball fifty (not the quickest I would have seen: that was Matthew Fleming’s 16-ball effort in a rain-reduced ten-over Sunday League game for Kent v Yorkshire in 1996). It was magnificent batting, with no qualification about it only being T20. Mike Hesson, the Black Caps coach, is shortly to have a conversation with Ryder about the possibility of a return to the national team for the forthcoming England tour of these islands. This is how Hesson should begin this exchange:

Hesson: Please Jesse (can I call you Jesse or would you prefer Mr Ryder?), you just name the terms, you don’t have to practise, just turn up and bat, you can have the house of whichever member of the New Zealand Cricket board you nominate and your own body weight in whatever fast food you choose delivered daily to the dressing room, but please play, I’m begging you.

A quietness overtook the ground for a while, punctuated only by the repentant sobbing of latecomers, as they learned what they had missed. Michael Papps began to build an innings that was perfect for the circumstances, busy, with enough big hits to keep the scoreboard moving at a good rate (by the way Basin Reserve authorities, if you have a scoreboard which shows the scores of team and batsmen by in the form of lit electric bulbs, wouldn’t it be an idea to check that enough of the bulbs are working to enable spectators to see what those scores actually are?). Papps was 70 not out from 48 balls at the end. He put on 79 for the third wicket with Cameron Borgas, who was no quicker about his work than he had been against Otago last week: 29 from 33 balls, not fast enough for the second half of a 20 innings on a good pitch. Borgas has a considerable repertoire of unorthodox shots, but fewer than desirable of the orthodox variety that have stood the test of time over the centuries as a means of moving things along. He was caught at fine third man from a dilscoop, which was just as well for Wellington as it brought in Luke Ronchi, who made 21 from just 11 balls.

Wellington finished with 182 for four, a formidable target, but one that Auckland had the firepower to chase down if they got a good start.

Tugaga removed Lou Vincent lbw from the first ball of the innings, and Gareth Hopkins followed in the second over, caught and bowled by slow left armer Mark Houghton. This left Aaron Finch as the bearer of Auckland’s hopes and dreams. Finch was signed just for the weekend, having been dropped from Australia’s ODI team, in which he featured last weekend (the biggest cheer of the day, incidentally, was raised not for a Ryder six, but for the news that Australia were 40 for nine against Sri Lanka at the Gabba). He was man of the series in this year’s Big Bash (as the Australian T20 is fashioned) and struck fluently from the start. Ryder put him down at backward point, one of five chances that Wellington spurned, something that has to be put right before the final.

Finch drove the Auckland innings along at a fair pace, well supported by Craig Cachopa. They were 84 for two in the tenth, and unease could be seen removing its hat and taking a seat among the home supporters. But at this point Finch was bowled as he made room to cut. From that point on wicket-taker Woodcock and Houghton (a combined three for 52 from eight overs) exercised sufficient control and guile to take the target over Auckland’s horizon. Ryder bowled with intelligence and accuracy towards the end, and Auckland finished 23 runs short, the width of the Sahara in T20 terms.

So it is off to the deep south for Wellington, who face Otago in the final on Sunday.

 

Tony Greig

I started a post about Tony Greig a while ago, but held it back when I discovered that David Tossell had written a biography of Greig that made my point at greater length: that people had forgotten what a top-class cricketer Tony Greig was. The intention was to get hold of the book and turn my piece into a review. News of Greig’s death – ever the showman, between the Melbourne and Sydney Tests – means that now is the time to finish it.

Many of the obituaries have – at last – set out the case for Greig the player, as well as giving him the kudos he deserves for his role in liberating the game from aristocratic cricket governance. Even so, Tony Greig is rarely mentioned when the great all-rounders are being discussed, even though he absolutely deserves to be. Why not?

His involvement in the creation World Series Cricket is central to the answer. Use of the language of the time to describe his role in the events that tore the cricket world asunder in May 1977 will illustrate the scale of the opprobrium that was heaped upon Greig then and suggest why its effects have continued to have an unjustly deleterious effect on his reputation ever since.

He was Kerry Packer’s “recruiting agent”, cricket’s “Quisling”, “tempting”, “seducing” even, his teammates into “disloyalty” and “desertion” in favour of Packer’s “pirates/rebels/circus”. John Woodcock wrote that Greig’s problem was that he was “not English through and through”, quite the silliest thing that great cricket writer ever wrote.

It may astonish those unfamiliar with these events that Greig’s role did not involve the secreting of barrels of gunpowder under the Long Room at Lord’s, nor the planning of the assassination of the President of MCC, but merely the promotion of an opportunity for under-rewarded cricketers to earn more for playing the game. Even though the traditionalists’ view of World Series Cricket has been the subject of revisionism that has exposed it to the ridicule it so clearly warrants, Tony Greig’s enduring association with it has continued to draw attention away from his fine playing record.

Then there was the fact that nobody ever said “when will there be another Tony Greig?” after he left international cricket in 1977, because as Greig exited, Ian Botham entered, a ready-made replacement, an improvement even. Yet comparison of Greig’s record with that of Botham is instructive. For a start, Greig’s Test batting average is 40.43, Botham’s 33.54. Greig scored 50 or more every 3.32 innings, Botham every 4.47 innings. Of course, Botham batted with wonderful panache and daring, but if he was Errol Flynn, Greig was at least Douglas Fairbanks Junior, as those of us who saw the highlights of him slicing Lillee and Thomson through gully and over the slips at the Gabba in 1974 will tell you (nobody in today’s sports-channel era could conceive of how exciting it was to watch those nightly half-hour highlights packages, a glimpse of the sharp light of the Australian summer bringing relief from the December drabness of the old country). Or, once more in adversity, at Headingley in 1976, centuries for Greig and Knott against Roberts, Holding and Daniel (and an unbeaten 76 leading an unsuccessful run chase in the second innings).

Greig the batsman relished the challenge of intimidating bowling and raised his game against the best, as great players do. In contrast, Botham’s batting average against the West Indies, the titans of his time, was 21.40.

This is not to denigrate Botham, a truly great player, first choice for All-time England XI (well, maybe second, after Alan Knott). Botham is a street ahead of Greig—and everybody else—as a bowler. But Greig was a fine bowler too with 141 Test wickets at 32.20, mostly from medium fast deliveries bowled from a loping, angular delivery, but with the ability to switch to off cutters, as he famously did to win a Test at Port-of-Spain in 1974.

Nor should it be forgotten that Greig was only 30 when he played his last Test, his best years, particularly as a batsman, still ahead of him. Had he continued into the the early eighties, he would have been bracketed with Botham, Hadlee, Imran Khan and Kapil Dev as a totem of the era of the all-rounders. We never saw the second half of his international career.

The third reason why Greig the cricketer has been overlooked is that he was, for more than three decades, one of cricket’s most irritating commentators: “Got ‘im!”, “Goodnight Charlie!”, “It went like a tracer bullet!” etc. He was always long on exuberance and short on analysis. Some would say that the same applied to his captaincy, but it should not be forgotten he was the first England captain since Jardine—and one of only four in total[i]—to lead his team to a Test series victory in India.

The case for the prosecution would conclude with his famous “I intend to make them grovel” remark in advance of the 1976 series against the West Indies. As I have written elsewhere[ii], for any England captain that would have been an unfortunate and poorly judged remark; for one with Greig’s harsh South African accent at the height of Apartheid it was inflammatory. Yet that apart, Greig’s record on racial issues is unblemished. Some of the obituaries say that Greig’s family was anti-Apartheid. It should be remembered that, unlike Allan Lamb, Chris and Robin Smith et al, Greig aligned himself with England before it became clear that South Africa was out of the international game long-term. He made his debut in the wonderful, neglected, series against the Rest of the World XI in which replaced the cancelled South Africa tour in 1970 (those games were regarded as Tests at the time, but are not so now; it was a fantastic series, and I must write about it).

One personal memory from 1976. Kent were drawn at home to Sussex in the second round of the Gillette Cup: http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/36/36340.html. We won the other two one-day trophies that season, but were bundled out of the 60-over competition by a brilliant all-round performance by Tony Greig, whose 62 and three for 45 were the best batting and bowling of the game (he took three catches too). This against the best side in the country. He was quite brilliant. Nobody who saw him that day could doubt that Tony Greig was a great cricketer.

---

[i] Gower and Cook are the other two.

[ii] http://mylifeincricketscorecards.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/fire-in-babylon.html

Wellington v Otago, T20, Basin Reserve, 11 January 2013

http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zealand-domestic-2012/engine/match/580778.html

To the Basin for the first time this season for an intriguing T20 match. With the league stage of the competition reaching its conclusion, Wellington, second in the table, hosted leaders Otago. On Sunday third-placed Northern Districts visit the Basin, so by the end of the weekend the line-up for the knock-out phase will be sorted out (the top-placed team hosts the final against the winners of playoff between the second and third-placed sides). No matter what the sporting code, Wellington teams have a long tradition of blowing it when this close to success, so the local mood going into this game was guarded at best.

Rumours that Chris Gayle had been signed for the two games this weekend proved unfounded, a pity as the prospect of Gayle peppering the rush-hour traffic around the Basin with sixes was alluring. Gales of a more familiar Wellingtonian kind were more happily absent on a beautiful late afternoon, though most of the pohutukawas had lost their scarlet bloom.

Otago won the toss and elected to bat. Hamish Rutherford and Neil Broom opened the batting, Ili Tugaga the bowling. Tugaga is the only No 10 batsman I have seen make a century in first-class cricket (http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/259/259070.html), and is a male model in his spare time (or possibly, is a cricketer in his spare time from being a male model). He took the first wicket when Broom hooked straight to long leg.

This brought in Derek de Boorder (Kiwi born-and-bred despite the South African-sounding name), who batted through until the penultimate ball of the innings for 67 without looking completely at ease until the last couple of overs, particularly when the blade of his bat separated from the handle during a straight drive. It hurtled towards the bowler, Jesse Ryder, who of all the Wellington team has a life experience that means he the least likely to be perturbed by a large piece of wood coming at him.

Rutherford’s 32 constituted precisely half of Otago’s total when he was brilliantly caught by Ryder at cover point. Ryder’s wonderful hand-eye co-ordination is worth any number of gym sessions; an athlete despite his girth.

Scott Kuggeleijn dropped de Boorder from a sharp diving chance at mid-wicket but atoned with a direct hit that ran out Nathan McCullum later the same over. This brought Ryan ten Doeschate of Essex and the Netherlands to the middle. He has the reputation of being one of the finest exponents of T20 in the world, a hitter, so I was keen to see him get going. But he had scored only nine when he fell to a fine catch by Tugaga, strutting the boundary catwalk.

A surfeit of boundaries through the middle of the innings meant that after 17 overs Otago had an unimpressive 132 for four. It was a dating website of an innings: singles only, though effective hitting at the death raised to 170, a par score but no more at the Basin.

As the Wellington innings began a spasm of anticipation ran round the crowd, for Jesse Ryder was at the wicket. Ryder is New Zealand’s only clear-the-bar batsman, someone who can generate excitement just by stepping onto the field. The appearance of the Black Caps Test batsmen sends supporters to the bar, drinking to forget. Ryder despatched the first ball of the third over to the long-off boundary with the insouciance of a restaurant critic sending  an overcooked turbot back to the kitchen. But he hit across the line of the next delivery and was bowled, to the sound of three thousand people emitting a wistful sigh.

At the other end was Bangladeshi batsman Tamim Iqbal. The appearance of the name of the scoreboard made me think what a fine T20 player Kent’s Asif Iqbal would have been,  full of movement and unorthodox shots, and a greyhound between the wickets. Tamim Iqbal has been quite successful in his spell for Wellington, but did not find the pace of the pitch today; much of his 41 was accrued from mistimed shots and he found scoring more difficult the longer his innings went on. Yet he was Jack Hobbs reincarnated compared with Australian import Cameron Borgas.

Borgas scored 50 in his last appearance for Wellington in November, but has scored only 26 in five innings for the Sydney Thunder since, and today had less touch than the Venus de Milo. His 35 came in 39 balls, a glacial pace of scoring in this form of the game. Had his innings been a dog it would have been mercifully euthanised at an early stage.

Luke Ronchi (another Aussie, but qualified for New Zealand) took just eight deliveries to overtake Borgas, who had been in for almost three-quarters of an hour, but was out for a nine-ball 20, by which point Wellington’s hopes faded away like an ageing starlet.

Some hitting in the last two overs reduced the final margin of Otago’s victory to 12 runs, which did not reflect the ease of the win. The local supporters retreated into the Wellington evening disappointed, but not in the least surprised.

Update: Wellington made a spirited attempt to lose Sunday’s game against Northern Districts by conceding 72 runs in the last six overs of the run chase, but won nevertheless and host Friday’s semi-final, probably against the same opponents.