The rare Black Cap who rises to the Aussie challenge

THE Black Caps have extended their winless run in Australia in painful fashion this week, collapsing from dominant positions in the first two matches of the Chappell-Hadlee series in Cairns.

Their streak of misery across the Tasman now stands at 14 matches in all formats and covers the span from 2015 to 2022, eclipsing their previous worst run of 10 matches without a win from 2004-08.

Will their fortunes change today, when they meet for the third time in the space of six days, with Australia chasing a clean sweep and the Black Caps looking to put two dramatic collapses behind them?

If they don’t, it will be 15 matches and counting, with their next meeting just under five weeks away, in the opening match of the Twenty20 World Cup at the Sydney Cricket Ground on October 22.

If they do, it will likely be because left-arm seamer Trent Boult continues his remarkable record against Australia, which includes hauls of 4-40 and 4-38 in the first two matches of the current series at Cazalys Stadium.

Thursday’s second match was Boult’s 14th ODI against Australia and he finished it with a bowling average of 17.18, almost seven runs better than his career mark of 24.10.

New Zealand cricketers can become heroes by starring against big brother from across the Tasman, but it’s rare to find somebody who consistently does better against the team in yellow than they do overall.

A total of 41 players have played at least as many ODIs as Boult has – from allrounder Daniel Vettori and his 56 on down to Rod Latham, Dipak Patel and Darryl Tuffey, who all also played 14.

Only 10 of them – including Boult – have done better against Australia than in the entirety of their careers and five of those – Latham, John Bracewell, Bruce Edgar, Ken Rutherford and Martin Sudden did so so slightly it’s barely worth noting.

Bracewell did improve his bowling average by almost eight runs, but he was starting from a mark of 57.09. Otherwise, none of their improvements were greater than 3.26 runs.

That leaves Chris Harris and Jacob Oram as batsman who significantly upped their game against Australia and Boult, Shane Bond and Ewen Chatfield as bowlers.

Harris’ batting average went from 29 to 38.56 in his 38 matches against Australia, while Oram’s went from 24.09 to 31.14 in his 19 matches.

With the ball, Chatfield’s average improved from 25.84 to 20.56 across 34 trans-Tasman clashes, while Bond’s was 15.79 compared to 20.88.

To illustrate how impressive Boult’s efforts against Australia