The Black Caps are on a roll, but they’re yet to face their sternest test.
The Black Caps, although impressive, still need to prove themselves in test cricket.
The International Cricket Council world rankings make pleasant reading for Kiwi fans. The Black Caps are the second-ranked T20 team and ranked fourth in both the 50 over (ODI) format – behind South Africa, India and England – and test cricket, in which they trail India, South Africa and Australia.
Add a record-winning streak across the three formats that ended, as they tend to do, with a display bearing little resemblance to the preceding run of victories and it’s little wonder the question is being asked: is this the best New Zealand men’s cricket team ever?
The Black Caps are certainly in a far better state than five years ago, when the murkiness surrounding Ross Taylor’s sacking as captain and subsequent lack of transparency severely tested the cricketing public’s goodwill. Brendon McCullum, who succeeded Taylor, deserves credit for his role in repairing the frayed relationship between team and fans and instilling a boldness that wasn’t really part of our cricketing DNA.
But perhaps his decision to retire from international cricket to become a T20 gun for hire was well timed. His desire to be proactive sometimes led to hyperactivity: tactical flexibility is all very well, but carefully laid plans have to be given a chance to work. His successor, Kane Williamson, has the critical attribute of patience. Preparation, discipline, clarity and a settled environment are the building blocks of consistency. When those boxes are ticked, things tend to go according to plan.
This team is an impressive unit in the abbreviated formats, but the jury is – or should be – out on how good they are at test cricket, which the players themselves generally regard as the true measure of quality and achievement. Indeed, it could be argued that at test level, the Black Caps are more flat-track bully than the real deal.
The term “flat-track bully” was coined by John Bracewell, a skilful and belligerent off-spinning allrounder who represented New Zealand throughout the 1980s and coached the Black
Caps from 2003 to 2008. Bracewell thereby has the rare and considerable distinction of having added to the English language and given a name to a concept that transcends cricket.
The Collins English Dictionary defines flat-track bully as “a sportsperson who dominates inferior opposition but cannot beat top-level opponents”. To reflect usage, the definition needs to be updated to include teams that punch down harder than they punch up.
Bracewell applied the term to one of the most enigmatic cricketers of the modern era – and it stuck. Zimbabwean prodigy Graeme Hick – he scored his first century aged six – went to England in his late teens to play county cricket and qualify for his adopted country. It took eight years, by which time
Hick had scored 57 first-class centuries and come to be seen as England’s saviour in waiting.
That never came to pass. In his two-decade career, Hick scored 136 centuries, the eighth-highest tally in history. Only six were made in test matches. The gulf between expectations and outcome created a perception, unerringly nailed by Bracewell, that the colossus of the county circuit couldn’t handle the heat in the test kitchen.
In the past few years, the Black
Caps have bullied Pakistan, Bangladesh, West Indies and Sri Lanka in home test series but struggled against the heavyweights, losing at home and away to Australia and South Africa and away to India. In 1985-87, New Zealand won home and away test series against Australia and England and drew at home against the almost all-conquering West Indies. That tough, talented team is still our test benchmark.