New bat on Munro’s Christmas shopping list
For a cricketer there’s nothing worse than snapping your favourite bat in half.
When it happens at a tense stage in a high pressure one-day international against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground it’s even worse.
Black Caps power hitter Colin Munro found out how that feels when he snapped his chunky slab of willow during his knock of 49 in a losing cause in the ChappellHadlee Trophy opener.
He gives it a decent whack, Munro, and judging by the thickness of the piece of willow that flew off it took some breaking.
‘‘There was a bit of shock to be honest. I’d just swapped my No 1 for that one and that was going good for me. Lucky Christmas is around the corner and I can get a few more, hopefully,’’ he said on arrival in Canberra for game two today.
This was Munro’s first ODI in over a year and the 29-year-old had never needed to call for a new stick out in the middle. ‘‘Not in a big game; a couple of times in the nets. That was a bit weird because that was a really good bat. Pretty disappointed.’’
Top players have a healthy supply of bats and nothing surer, his sponsor would have sprung into action after the television pictures beamed around the world.
With the new willow Munro responded pretty well, scoring 49 off 59 balls at No 6 as the Black Caps fell 68 runs short of their target of 325.
With Ross Taylor absent due to eye surgery it required a reshuffle, with Jimmy Neesham up to four, BJ Watling elevated to take the chase deep and Munro at six to finish. As long as Martin Guptill and Munro were there they had a chance, but after Guptill fell for a magnificent 114 in the 33rd over, Munro gradually ran out of partners and his was second-top score.
‘‘It was a different sort of knock to what I’m used to playing. Given that role to take things a bit deeper in the innings suits my game and hopefully in the games to come I can have a few extra batters around me at the end and have a bit of a hit.’’
At least it showed Munro felt at home back in the ODI side, having last played in South Africa in August 2015. This was his 13th ODI.
With a first-class average of 49.4, he came in fresh with just three domestic innings this season after requiring two months off due to a stress fracture.
There wasn’t much time to dwell on their Sydney shortcomings ahead of the second day-nighter at Manuka Oval, but the debrief showed up some obvious areas for improvement.
‘‘You look at the history there’s some big scores there. If we can make a few tweaks along the way it will go a long way towards putting ourselves in a good position.
‘‘Just little things in terms of trying to take the innings a bit deeper and with the ball sticking to our plans. We went away from them a little bit.’’