Mark Reason
This New Zealand cricket side have the odd flaw, but are still surely the finest in the country’s history. The annihilation of Pakistan in the third one-day international was a result of an intelligent shift of tactics by a team shaped in their captain’s image.
When Kane Williamson took a fanciful catch to put New Zealand on the edge of a record victory, he epitomised the virtues this side are being built around. Williamson is talented, diligent, thoughtful and loyal, which aren’t bad qualities for any sporting side to build around.
New Zealand are currently ranked the fourth-best test side in the world, the fifth in ODIs and are top of the heap in T20 cricket. In the fastest form of the game, they have the highest-ranked batsman in Colin Munro and the highestranked bowler in Ish Sodhi. They are threatening all sorts of records, but more importantly, they are becoming a side across all formats with some real depth.
Williamson has set the standards with his own batting and attitude to practice. He may lack Baz’s charisma, but he more than makes up for it in intelligence and decency. Williamson is, if you like, an old-fashioned captain. He is Richie McCaw, with a touch more ingenuity.
A couple of years ago, coach Mike Hesson made some particularly telling comments about Williamson. ‘‘He’s very wellregarded everywhere in the world. He’s a world-class player – and we haven’t had very many of those.
‘‘I think the thing the team most likes about Kane is that he’s so selfless – I understand you [the media] might not get quotes out of him talking about himself, but that’s him. He doesn’t do it for effect, he does it because that’s what he cares about – he cares about the team, he cares about trying to win games for his country and that’s his priority.
‘‘If he’s able to achieve milestones along the way, so be it – but it’s certainly not something that drives him. What drives him is trying to win games for New Zealand. He reads the game particularly well, gets to know the players, what makes them tick, and certainly makes a real effort to try and get the best out of everybody.’’
Now, were there a couple of slight barbs in there aimed at Brendon McCullum’s captaincy. I believe there were. McCullum gave you quotes, but they often reflected glory on himself. He often seemed bigger than the team. We saw this again just the other day when Baz was blathering in that mock heroic style of his after his Brisbane Heat T20 team-mate Alex Ross was justifiably given out for obstructing the field.
McCullum said: ‘‘We are not righteous in our stance on the spirit of the game, but every now and then you get a chance to stand up to the spirit of cricket and tonight George [Bailey] and the Hurricanes missed that opportunity.’’
McCullum was critical of Bailey, just as he had criticised Steve Smith in similar vein a couple of years ago. But as captain of the Heat, McCullum should have said something like: ‘‘We don’t believe AR deliberately obstructed the field, but we accept that it could look that way and support the umpire’s decision.’’
Williamson would have defended the integrity of his teammate without chucking the other captain and the umpire under the bus in a phoney display of sportsmanship. McCullum could not have been more self-righteous and attention seeking, despite his protests to the contrary.
McCullum did some very good things for this New Zealand team, particularly in the cheerful energy he brought to the group and the entertaining of the fans, but under Williamson they have gone to another level. They are far more flexible in selection, far less of an old boys club.
I doubt if Tim Southee would ever have been dropped once McCullum had established himself as a captain. You wonder too if Jeet Raval would have come through as he has done, and if some of the younger players, like Lockie Ferguson, would have felt so comfortable quite so soon.
The other positive is that there is no longer division in this team. Under McCullum there can be no doubt that Ross Taylor felt that he had been done over. It was a sore that festered and cannot have done the team much good.
But Taylor came out and said when Williamson was tired and under pressure: ‘‘He’s our captain in all three formats and will be for few more years yet.’’
Williamson has the loyalty of the team, but there are many tests to come if New Zealand are to prove without question they are the best the country has ever had. The middle order of the one-day side looks flimsy and needs some accomplished hitters.
The running between the wickets should also have been better yesterday. Threes were missed early on and the Williamson/Guptill run out could have cost the match. Nor was it new. The same mix-up around ball watching happened in a 2016 T20 against Pakistan.
New Zealand also lack quality spin bowling at test level. In test matches Nathan Lyon, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin and Rangana Herath are all ranked in the top 10. New Zealand scarcely have anyone ranked in the top 50. I also have one quibble about Williamson’s captaincy. I have previously been very critical of McCullum for spouting on about the spirit of cricket and then endangering tailenders by encouraging Neil Wagner to bowl at their heads. Sadly the practice has continued under Williamson and it remains completely unacceptable. The shows of concern when people get skulled make it all the more unpalatable.
But that aside, we can look forward to a glorious couple of months of cricket. This is a worthy Pakistan team with some hugely talented bowlers. And then there is a triangular T20 series with Australia and England, followed by a one-day series against England and two test matches.
Excepting injury to Williamson, Taylor or Trent Boult, New Zealand are capable of beating any side in the world, especially at home. They are smashing the world’s poorer teams, something they haven’t always done. Now they need to start winning consistently against some of the best.
Once upon a time too many egos got in the way of development, solidarity and hard work. New Zealand were a team that almost had a class structure. Under Williamson everyone is treated more equally, a worker in a union that encourages success. It is time now to push on, because this New Zealand side is good enough to win World Cups.