Well-travelled Black Caps tested by schedule
THE Black Caps touched down in Auckland an hour before dawn on Thursday, more than 48 hours after they left Barbados – the seventh different country they’d played in since the start of June.
From the first test against England at Lord’s, which started on June 2, to the third one-day international against the West Indies, played last Monday, there were a total of 20 matches – three tests, seven ODIs and 10 T20s.
Even before they arrived back home, plans were already in place for their next series – three ODIs against Australia in Cairns in the second week of September. The squad for that tour was made public while many of the players in it were somewhere over the
Pacific Ocean and they will have just over a week in New Zealand before they head off in the opposite direction on Friday.
Australia will be the eighth country the Black Caps has visited in four months and the matches will take their tally to 23, but by the end of May next year, they will have played between 69 and 72 in a total of 11 different countries, including 20 or 21 on home soil – nine tests, 27 ODIs and 33 to 36 T20s all told.
In the period from the end of one summer to the end of the next, which takes in overseas action during the New Zealand winter, then the home action that follows, as well as any tours that take place during that Kiwi summer, they have never previously played more than 46 matches.
In the 21st century, they have usually topped out somewhere between 37 and 43 matches in the equivalent periods. The last two years have been quiet, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
So how did the Black Caps’ schedule get so crowded and hectic at this point in particular?
It is largely down to a combination of Covid and the abandonment of the tour of Pakistan last September and October following threats to the safety and security of the team.
An extra two ODIs have been tacked onto that tour, which will now take place in April, just months after an previouslyscheduled visit for two tests as part of the World Test Championship and three ODIs as part of the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League.
The World Cup Super League also has a role to play in creating this fixture frenzy. In case you’ve forgotten what that is, or haven’t even heard of it – it features 13 teams playing eight of their 12 possible opponents in three-match series, with the top eight teams at the end of it qualifying automatically for next year’s World Cup in India, and the others heading to a last-chance tournament.
When this period was originally planned, under the last edition of the Future Tours Programme, it was set to feature eight tests and 18 ODIs leading up to the Cricket World Cup in India and nine to 11 further matches, for a total of 35 to 37.
The pandemic has pushed that World Cup to October and November next year, but it also pushed the 2020 T20 World Cup in
Australia to this October and November, though that means a net loss of five fixtures. ODIs home and away against the West Indies and Afghanistan have also disappeared, as did a test in Ireland (the home association’s call).
White-ball fixtures already played in Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands and the West Indies, as well as the ODI series to come
in Australia and Pakistan and against India at home, and the T20 series in Pakistan next April were postponed at some stage. They take the tally up to 52.
It is already set to be an unusual summer – matches will start two weeks earlier than ever before, on October 8, and it will feature 77 days without any home Black Caps’ matches, from November 30 to February 16.