‘Cruel’ to select Raval believes McMillan
Former Black Caps batting coach Craig McMillan is backing Tom Blundell to replace struggling opener Jeet Raval for the second cricket test, saying it would be cruel to pick him again.
McMillan told Radio Sport there are two obvious changes New Zealand should make for Boxing Day at the MCG after their 296-run loss to Australia in Perth, saying Raval and spinner Mitchell Santner should be jettisoned.
‘‘It’s pretty obvious, the opening batting conundrum at the top and the spinner, they’re the two who have to be sorted and changes have to be made,’’ McMillan told Radio Sport. ‘‘You drop him [Raval] because playing him again would be cruel. It would actually be silly. Tom Blundell is the batting cover, he’s covering positions one to six.
‘‘[Blundell] has the skillset that can succeed at the top. He plays fast bowling well; he’s a good back foot player. The question for me is would you lose anything by playing him in this next test match? The answer to that is a very simple no, so he has to play.’’
Raval scored 1 and 1 in Perth, making it 66 runs from his last nine test innings at an average of 7.33.
Blundell is the only batting cover in the 15-man squad, so will come in if Raval is dropped.
The question is whether it would be too daunting to throw him into the unfamiliar opening spot against speedsters Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins. Another option is to play him in the middle order and do a reshuffle with Henry Nicholls and BJ Watling both strong candidates to move up to partner Tom Latham. McMillan favoured option one. ‘‘A straight swap – you can’t be changing two or three other positions. Yes, they missed out in that first test but their records over a period of time at numbers four, five, six have been so good,’’ he said of Nicholls and Watling.
Coach Gary Stead, usually a staunch defender of Raval, opened the door for change in Perth on Monday. ‘‘Jeet has gone through a tough time recently. We’re all trying as hard as we can to help Jeet and get him in a good frame of mind,’’ Stead said.
McMillan said legspinner Todd Astle with a far superior first-class record should usurp Santner whose best innings figures in 49 first-class matches remains 3-27. Santner took 0-146 off 41 overs at Optus Stadium.
‘‘We need to take some pressure off Neil Wagner and Tim Southee . . . the spinner has to be able to pick up three, four, five wickets.’’