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, NeilWagner 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 itwith 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.