Few tests for selectors
OPINION: Never change a winning side. It’s one of sport’s oftquoted maxims – and as cliches go, holds more valid weight than many.
If you have a winning formula, there should be little desire to tinker with it. Why risk upsetting the equation that has given you positive results? Well, because you can always strive for improvement.
So should Mike Hesson and Gavin Larsen make any adjustments to a New Zealand side that has just clinched a dominant 2-0 series win over the West Indies?
They’ll have plenty of time to ponder the quandary as the Black Caps don’t next don the whites until March 22 when they’ll play under lights each evening at Eden Park against England.
The selection brains trust won’t have to hold detailed talks over every role in the side. Eight players from the side that beat the Windies by 240 runs in Hamilton are assured of featuring against England, barring injury – captain Kane Williamson, Jeet Raval, Tom Latham, Ross Taylor, Colin de Grandhomme, Neil Wagner, Tim Southee and Trent Boult.
The job of wicketkeeper could be decided by the fitness of BJ Watling. The long-term gloveman and batsman has been unavailable due to a nagging hip injury that appears to threaten his long-term future behind the stumps.
Tom Blundell has made a fine fist of his first test series as Watling’s replacement and would be happily retained if Watling can’t don the gloves, while Tim Seifert continues to make big strides with Northern Districts.
The spotlight will fall on two players – Henry Nicholls and Mitchell Santner. Batting at No 5, Nicholls is averaging 31.45 from 16 tests. They’re numbers good enough to not see him dropped, but also not convincing enough – yet – to assure himself of a place.
Should Nicholls not warrant a place against England, there has to be a better replacement.
With Martin Guptill currently injured, Dean Brownlie horribly out of form, Will Young still short of runs and Tom Bruce yet to make a claim as a test prospect, Colin Munro is the likely consideration.
The one-test Aucklander, who will open for NZ in the ODI series against the Windies starting in Whangarei next Wednesday, has a first-class average of 51.58. That would normally assure any Kiwi batsman a test place, but there are clearly still questions against the hard-hitting left-hander’s ability to adjust to all the demands of test batsmanship.
The same theory with Nicholls applies to Santner – he could only be left out if it’s deemed there’s a better option to play.
His challengers would be Todd Astle and Ish Sodhi. Two-test Astle has a far superior bowling firstclass record to Santner; the Cantabrian has taken 313 wickets at 31.61 and scored over 4000 runs at 26 while Santner averages 29.64 with the bat and a concerning
45.57 with the ball in the longer form.
However, Astle does seem on the outer of test selection, while legspinner Sodhi has played 14 tests since his debut in October
2013, taking 38 wickets at an expensive 46.68. He’s played only two tests in the past three years in the past three years, none of them in New Zealand.
An option may be to push the
25-year-old Santner down the batting order.
The slim left-hander was brought into international cricket with minimal experience at firstclass level, so has partly had to learn and develop his craft at the highest level. Watling – or Blundell – and de Grandhomme have the ability to bat higher, should that kind of balance be sought.
That, however, would cast Santner more into the role of a specialist spinner instead of an allrounder. Is that one he can fill?
Given how little he bowled in the two tests against the Windies – a decent spell in the Windies’ second dig at the Basin the only stint of any length – and the likelihood that the swing bowlers and seamers will dictate pink-ball proceedings at Eden Park, would that be a luxury selection?
We’ll know the answers in 100 days – although I suspect Larsen and Hesson will follow that fiveword guide.