Of persisting with Southee
Predictably it included a four, a six and a wide and went for 15. Heaven help us, but presumably the other four bowlers were all too inexperienced at this sort of thing.
It is so frustrating. You used to see this sort of bonkers thinking with the English football team. They would go out time and time again on penalties at major sports competitions and then declare that you couldn’t practise penalties.
Then Gareth Southgate came along and suddenly brought some sophistication to England’s thinking. He borrowed mightily from other sports and introduced their techniques. He was innovative round corner kicks, penalty kicks, even media interviews. Suddenly England became good at this sort of stuff.
These opportunities are there now for New Zealand cricket. Someone at cricket HQ should give Beauden Barrett a call and ask if he could give them an introduction to Dave Alred. He’s the bloke who used to be the kicker at Minnesota Vikings and who helped turn Johnny Wilkinson into one of the great kickers of a rugby ball.
Alred also once offered to help England football. He explained that Germany were so good at penalties because their kickers tended to use their big muscles and rotate through the ball. He explained that the big muscles were less likely to become ‘‘twitchy’’ under pressure. Of course no one from England football gave him a call.
But a couple of golfers did. Luke Donald became the number one golfer in the world. Then in 2018 Francesco Molinari, a superb ball striker who used to melt a bit in the heat, went on a tear. He won in America for the first time, he won the BMW PGA (the European Tour’s flagship event), he won the Open Championship paired with Tiger Woods, and he was the star of the Ryder Cup, winning all five of his games.
He said: ‘‘There was probably a missing link between swinging well and scoring well. Dave filled that gap and I can’t thank him enough.’’
Do you think New Zealand cricket will get in touch? No, nor do I. Malinga practised and practised his skills at a single cone. Jasprit Bumrah learned from Malinga at Mumbai. But we’re not always good at reaching out in this country. Sometimes it’s great to be self reliant. But sometimes it’s OK to ask for help.
It was depressing to read one New Zealand cricket fan compare Stead to Janine Southby. But he has been given the ammunition to do so.
It doesn’t help when Stead says: ‘‘You win some, you lose some, but we have to get better at winning them, that’s just the reality of it. We have to make sure when we’re put under pressure like that, we have answers.’’
Cliche after cliche. When I listen to Stead, I can hear Southby’s voice. It’s in those high performance cliches. It’s a world away from the voices of Noeline Taurua and Wayne Smith, perhaps the two great communicators of Kiwi coaching. It’s a world away from winning.
‘‘There is little evidence that age makes sportsmen better suited to handling pressure situations.’’