Black Caps, your number is up
Test cricket has become a numbers game where shirts are concerned. The theories behind the players’ choices are numerous, as Mark Geenty reports.
It could be the street address where you grew up.
Or a number of significance to your faith.
Maybe even something as simple as your batting position, when your top choice is already taken by the captain.
But a few are off limits; a certain number between 68 and 70 (more on that later), and those worn by the seven New Zealand cricketers to play 200 one-day internationals, whose shirt numbers have been officially retired. And those already taken by ODI and T20 players from the past two years.
For the 15-man Black Caps squad in Sri Lanka for their World Test Championship opener starting on Wednesday in Galle, it wasn’t quite as simple as ‘‘pick a number, any number’’.
The above methods all helped Will Somerville, Ajaz Patel and Jeet Raval settle on their first shirt numbers as test cricket joins the short formats. Names and numbers are now in, even on whites.
Somerville, with a solitary test and no limited overs internationals to his name, had a simple formula: ‘‘I grew up at 28 Upper Watt St in Wadestown [Wellington], so that’s where it comes from.’’
Fellow spin bowler Patel, the first Muslim to play test cricket for New Zealand, was guided by his faith and a bit of help from mum.
‘‘Initially I wanted 21 but Henners [Matt Henry] has got that. The significance with 21 is 786 [added together] which is a number related to my religion. I couldn’t get that so Mum said 888 is also a good number, so 24 it is [three times eight].’’
Opening batsman Raval had to go the more roundabout route for his first test with a number on his back, his 19th in all.
Said Raval: ‘‘I would have liked to choose 22 which is unfortunately taken by the skipper [Kane Williamson], so I didn’t have a choice in that. Number 88 was second on my list and that was chosen by Grant Elliott and it’s not available at the moment.
‘‘I thought being an opening batsman No 1 resonates well with me and I just went with it. But for me it’s the number on my chest, not on my back, that matters.’’
Yes, there’s more than one number. Each player’s shirts also carry their official test number beside the silver fern on their chest, which for Raval is 271, Patel 274 and Somerville 275
(the last named New Zealand’s 275th and most recent test cricketer).
The Black Caps first played with numbered shirts in a
1997 one-day series against Australia. Twenty years on, the New Zealand Cricket Museum compiled a definitive list of player numbers worn across ODI and Twenty20 international cricket.
Black Caps team manager Mike Sandle and logistics manager Riaan Muller have their master list, too, on which about 40 numbers between one and 99 are still available for new players to choose. International Cricket Council regulations state they can’t stretch to three digits. Sandle had to devise a system, too, in consultation with senior players when numbers began running out a few years back. To free some up, they decided a player’s number would become available again two years after their international retirement. But the 200-club – Daniel Vettori (11), Stephen Fleming (7), Brendon Mccullum (42), Chris Harris (5), Ross Taylor (3), Nathan Astle (9) and Chris Cairns (6) – had theirs retired. Mccullum also has his 42 tattooed on his arm in Roman numerals. Most players keep their first number and wear it across the formats but some have been allowed to change, like Jimmy Neesham who switched from 83 to 50 which he wore at the World Cup.
When Mitchell Mcclenaghan, Colin Munro and Neesham all started around the same time they were simply allocated 81, 82 and 83, Sandle said.
‘‘I thought it took the personal touch away. We wanted to give it a bit more meaning, and create a bit of a legacy. Players coming in now have got a choice and they will pick them for various reasons. A lot of it is quite personal. They obviously put thought into it.’’
And that brings us to 69. No sniggering, please.
Call it what you will – rude, tacky or mildly funny – but that is the only number off limits on the master list.
‘‘We just want to be respectful,’’ said Sandle of the number formerly worn by South African allrounder Lance Klusener.
Fast bowler Lockie Ferguson has
worn 69 for Auckland, and previously told The Spinoff it was for astrological significance (he’s a Gemini, born on June 13, 1991).
So when Ferguson made his ODI debut against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground in December, 2016, he chose 87 (previously worn by Roger Twose). For Australians that’s deemed unlucky, 100 minus 13.
According to the NZ Cricket Museum’s list, Craig Cumming was the only Black Cap to wear No 13. The most popular was 15, worn at various times by Mark Priest, Geoff Allott, Jeff Wilson, Vettori (just in one series in 1998) and Nathan Mccullum.
Higher numbers seem less popular. For those fans of the 90s there are plenty free, in fact numbers 92 to 99, according to the list, are yet to be worn by any New Zealand cricketer.
A few are off limits; a certain number between 68 and 70 . . .