Black Caps park baggage from Lord’s
Spare a thought for those poor lambs from England, says former skipper Michael Vaughan, flogged by Australia in the first test just three weeks after becoming world champions.
‘‘It is important people understand how difficult it is for some of these players to raise themselves after the Cricket World Cup,’’ Vaughan wrote in the Telegraph.
Hang on a minute. So how do we apply Vaughan’s musings to the Black Caps, then?
Devastated after matching England run for run in the final but missing out on the trophy on a boundary countback at Lord’s, the New Zealanders carry much heavier baggage to Sri Lanka where they resume cricket today for the first time since that epic decider. While England capitulated in the Ashes opener at Edgbaston, Kane Williamson reconvenes his side for a threeday match against a Sri Lankan Board President’s XI as their solitary warmup for next Wednesday’s first test at Galle.
After the many Lord’s postmortems, the low-key shakedown at Katunayake north of Colombo arrives not a moment too soon.
‘‘It’s good there’s a change of format and some personnel changes as well,’’ coach Gary Stead said from Colombo. ‘‘That’s eased the chat around what happened at the World Cup and we can move ahead to an exciting time around the World Test Championship.’’
Nor should they just brush aside the pain of Lord’s, the coach said, with nine of the 15-man test squad backing up from that seven-week rollercoaster through the UK.
They arrived in Colombo in dribs and drabs, including spinner Ajaz Patel fresh from taking bags of wickets for Cranleigh Cricket Club in Surrey.
Yesterday marked the squad’s fourth training session since arriving in the 30-plus degrees Celsius and 80-plus per cent humidity of Colombo, shielded by armed soldiers at the nets.
Stead took a post-world Cup holiday in Europe with his wife and two teenage children, and was grateful for anonymity in some countries where cricket is barely spoken of.
Asked about Vaughan’s comments, Stead wasn’t about to play the ‘‘woe is us’’ card.
‘‘Everyone’s probably dealt with it differently. Some guys came straight home and felt the groundswell of support from the New Zealand public which has been amazing. Others took a week to 10 days to get away from cricket, have a holiday and put the feet up after a really intense seven or eight weeks together.
‘‘I don’t think we should ever lose the feelings or emotions we had and it’s difficult to suppress them. We had an amazing campaign together and it was just unfortunate we didn’t quite get over the line.’’
The three-dayer which doesn’t have first-class status will allow all 15 squad members to ease into their work, and if there’s any Lord’s hangover it won’t become apparent until the two-test series gets under way.
The Black Caps arrive as the world’s second-ranked test side bidding for a berth in the inaugural WTC final back at Lord’s in June 2021.
They’re a settled unit with the biggest question over whether to play two spinners or three at Galle, with the latter option highly likely on recent history which means one of Mitchell Santner, Todd Astle, Will Somerville or Patel miss out.
All will get a chance to twirl away and impress Stead and Williamson in coming days, in a country where New Zealand haven’t won a test series since their first visit in 1984. Their last trip in 2012 ended 1-1.
‘‘It’s been what we expected, hot and humid and you sweat buckets. That’s the sort of thing we’ve got to prepare for. Most guys have toured here before and understand what that’s like,’’ Stead said.