Seeking fix for Black Caps’ Eden Park problem AT A GLANCE
The Black Caps have an Eden Park problem and they don’t have long to fix it.
With India winning by six wickets in the opening match of the Twenty20 series on Friday, the Black Caps have now won just one of their last nine matches at the Auckland venue.
Overall, they have played 20 matches there in the game’s shortest format and won just six, though there have been three ties as well as 11 losses.
The Black Caps boast winning records at Bay Oval, Seddon Park and Sky Stadium, the other home venues where they play Twenty20 regularly, making their struggles at Eden Park all the more peculiar. They will get a chance to notch a seventh win there – and a second since 2014 – today when another loss will leave them needing to win three straight to take the series.
Whenever teams come to Eden Park, there is always plenty of discussion about its small, oddshaped boundaries and how they force teams to adjust.
As New Zealand veteran batsman Ross Taylor sees it, the key is in keeping their opponents guessing.
‘‘I think you’ve just got to not be predictable, with both bat and ball. I’m not sure what our extra count was, but sometimes when you come here you can be too predictable, either too full or too short.
‘‘Obviously we know the straight boundaries are very short, but then you can become predictable bowling back of a length, and while the square boundaries are slightly bigger, on a good wicket you can clear them with ease.
‘‘Eden Park definitely adds a new dimension and what we have learnt in the past if we have had two games in a row is that it does slow up a little bit, so we’ll have to wait and see and adapt. Is there going to be any dew? Who knows.
‘‘It’s a pretty tight series in terms of timing so we’ll just have to pick ourselves up and come along and hopefully we learn pretty quickly.’’
Legspinner Ish Sodhi was the best of the Black Caps bowlers as they tried to defend their total of 203-5, conceding 12 in his first over but just 24 off the other three, while picking up the wickets of KL Rahul and Shivam Dube – though he did drop a catch off Virat Kohli.
India got after fellow spinner Mitchell Santner, who conceded 50 off his four overs, while Tim Southee (0-48 off four) and Blair
Tickner (1-34 off three) also received some treatment, though Hamish Bennett (0-36 off four) was tidy on debut.
Sodhi yesterday said being aggressive with the ball would be important in today’s match.
‘‘I suppose you’ve got to look at whether the wicket gets better at night. We definitely found in the first innings that it did hold a little bit – cross-seamers were holding in the deck a little bit and the ball was spinning a little bit for their spinners as well.
‘‘Whether it gets better under lights and there is a dew factor, it’s just one of those grounds. You bowl good balls they go for six, you bowl bad balls they go for six. It can be quite hard to contain at times.
‘‘[Captain] Kane [Williamson] was really good to us at the end of the game, telling us as a bowling group to continue to be aggressive. You’ve got to look to take wickets the entire time, 4-45 could be a really good day at the office where elsewhere around the world it’s probably not.’’
Kane Williamson (c), Hamish Bennett, Tom Bruce (matches 4-5) Colin de Grandhomme (matches 1-3), Martin Guptill, Scott Kuggeleijn, Daryl Mitchell, Colin Munro, Mitchell Santner, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, Blair Tickner.
Black Caps squad:
India squad:
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), Lokesh Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, Ravindra Jadeja, Sanju Samson, Shardul Thakur.
1st T20 at Eden Park, Auckland:
India won by six wickets (with six balls remaining) 2nd T20 at Eden
Today, 7.50pm: Wednesday, January 29, 8pm:
Park, Auckland
3rd T20 at Seddon Park, Hamilton
4th T20 at Sky Stadium, Wellington
5th T20 at Bay Oval, Mt Maunganui
January 31, 8pm:
February 2, 8pm:
Friday,
Sunday,