Pressure on NZ veteran batsmen
Aiming to predictwhich Black Cap will star tonight is like a fortunate eight-year-old trying to decide which present to open first on Christmas morning.
After Tim Seifert top-scored for New Zealand against Pakistan in Hamilton on Sunday night, the list of players to havemade a significant impact for the hosts over the past months simply grew lengthier.
Lockie Ferguson, Glenn Phillips and Devon Conway all shone in the Twenty20 series against the West Indies before established stars
Tim Southee, Kane Williamson, Tom Latham, Neil Wagner and Henry Nicholls all featured strongly in the test series whitewash against the same opposition.
There was also Kyle Jamieson, who has made a start to test cricket like no other allrounder.
Now in the first two games of the T20 series against the next visitors, we’ve seen debutant Jacob Duffy rip into the Pakistan top-order, Mark Chapman help guide the team to another win and Seifert register scores of 57 and 84 on his last two innings.
Among all those contributors ahead of the final game of the T20 series against Pakistan in Napier tonight, two names are notable omissions – Ross Taylor and Martin Guptill.
Between them, the pair have played a staggering 760 games for New Zealand over the three formats and formed a sizeable section of the spine of the Black Caps for more than a decade.
Taylor was dropped from the 18-man T20 squad for the Pakistan series after scores of 0 and 0 not out against the Windies in the shortest-form serieswhile making 38 and nine in his two test innings in Hamilton and Wellington
‘‘I have absolute faith in Ross,’’ NZ coach Gary Stead said.
‘‘The T20 selection was a very, very tough selection, probably one of the toughest we’ve had to make. He’s been a consistent performer, but we just couldn’t find a place in the squad with what we’ve seen from Devon [Conway] and Glenn Phillips as well.’’
Guptill made a brisk 34 off 23 balls on Sunday, looking in good nick and Seifert praised his opening partner for his role in getting their chase for victory off to a rollicking start.
But in his last 18 T20 matches since the start of 2019, the 34-year-old has complied only 331 runs at an average of 20.68 – albeit it with an excellent strike-rate of 149.09. Among those innings are seven scores of 30 or more – which is likely one reason why Stead and chief selector Gavin Larsen will be in no hurry to drop the most prolific batsman in New Zealand’s T20 history, by quite some margin.
With the T20 World Cup scheduled for India next October, neither veteran seems set to be fully discarded, despite both feeling increasing pressure to be considered first-choice selections.
But what delights Larsen and Stead the most is that Seifert, Phillips, Conway and Chapman – in the shortest format – are all stepping up when opportunities are presented.
Imagine, that you’ve been selected for the New Zealand cricket team. Then two weeks later, a pattern arrives, along with a bolt of fabric, and you are expected to sew your own uniform.
While that’s unimaginable for men of any era, and the modern White Ferns, it was the reality for women who represented New Zealand from the mid-1930s until the 1970s.
But that is just part of the story that has helped shaped not only women in cricket, but the sport itself. Corsets, cloches and culottes The first documentation of women playing cricket in New Zealand is from the late 1800s, adorned in wide-brimmed hats, ‘‘well padded’’ corsets and full length skirts. Historians, including those behind The Warm Sun on My Face – the Story ofwomen’s Cricket in New Zealand (due out in January), believe it was this uniform that led to the invention of the overarmbowling style, as the voluminous skirts impeded the ability to bowl underarm– the standard style of bowling at the time.
Corsets were slowly phased out amongst New Zealand society through the early part of the 20th century, and by the 1920s – when sporting pursuits of women increased – women were wearing knee-length skirts and cloche hats while on the field.
The first discussion of trousers for women came in the early 1930s, but it would be another 50 years before trousers were introduced. During this time ‘‘divided skirts’’ were commonly worn, so were long woollen socks or nylon stockings. The latter was phased out in the 1950s.
During the latter era, the players were encouraged not to wear hats, as it was deemed too ‘‘masculine’’.
Fashion historian Doris Du Pont from the New Zealand Fashion Museum said the uniforms ‘‘absolutely’’ reflected the fashion of the day, however she found the inclusion of stockings slightly odd.
’’The wearing of stockings is completely bizarre ... because with cricket you’ve got to dive for the ball, and you know how expensive stockings are,’’ she said.
’’Trousers for women... were acceptable during the war years when women were doing men’s work. It’s interesting that it wasn’t acceptable for sport.
’’But there was still a stigma about women taking part in sport ... being too physical.’’
The uniforms were ‘‘social restriction’’ rather than fashion or function – with men often dictating what women wore and how they engaged in sport, Du Pont said.
‘‘It’s not an easy uniform to be active in,’’ she said.
Sewit yourself
Test cricketer Trish Mckelvey first toured the United Kingdom in 1966/67. She remembers the New Zealand Women’s Cricket Council sending her a pattern, a bolt of fabric – just like her predecessors – and a voucher to buy heeled formal shoes.
‘‘[Formal] hats were supplied … we had to have gloves because we were going to the garden party at Buckingham Palace, and we went to Hannahs for a specific style of shoe. And we had to get our dress uniform made by someone, at our expense,’’ she said.
The side were also given matching handbags, which were often discarded amongst playing equipment on the sidelines during the games.
There was no ‘‘official playing gear’’, she said, so players wore what they already owned – usually long socks, culottes and a buttoned down shirt – resulting in a ‘‘variety of whites’’, but they still looked ‘‘quite good out on the field’’.
During this time, the players also had to kneel on the ground to have their culottesmeasured. Culottes had to be just above the knee.
But during the late 1960s and into the 70s – as the second-wave of feminism kicked in – the culottes got shorter and shorter; a reflection of modern society where mini-skirts became a symbol of women’s empowerment.