LOOKING UP
The Black Caps are back: Burgeoning batting, Devon’s debut and wrestling with the rain
The first cricket series of the “summer” came to a soggy end at Mt Maunganui. Just 2.2 overs were possible in the third T20I on Monday night. In that brief time, the West Indies made 25-1 with a couple of powerful blows mixed with lucky edges.
There was also time for Mitchell Santner to make his first interventions as national captain, winning the toss and bowling first, handing himself the ball for the first over (it wasn’t his finest work), then setting a funky field to Lockie Ferguson that resulted in a wicket.
They had obviously identified West Indies opener Brandon King as a player who goes hard at the ball but a fraction late. Santner stacked the field behind square on the off side and King obliged, slashing the ball to wide third man boundary rider James Neesham. A flick, a nick and a couple of play and misses later, and the players were gone as the rain set in. Despite the unsatisfactory conclusion, there are some takeaways from the truncated series.
1. New Zealand is building enviable depth across formats
New Zealand went into the final match of the series without Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor and Colin Munro, arguably the country’s five best-performed active T20 players, were also without Kyle Jamieson and yet would have still been narrow favourites against the world champions.
“I think the boys are gelling and the way the young players are coming and asking questions is a good thing about our team right now,” said Player of the Series Ferguson, of the team’s ability to bring in new faces.
The pace bowling cupboard has been well stocked for a while, but Devon Conway’s qualification and Glenn Phillips’ re-emergence has added real punch to the batting.
Until a likely reshuffle caused by BJ Watling’s injury, New Zealand were set to start this week’s first test with a settled batting line-up, but the truth is nobody can be guaranteed a long lean spell in the team with Conway and Phillips, as well as Will
Young (set for a debut if Watling is ruled out) and Daryl Mitchell (who could also play the first test in the absence of Colin de Grandhomme) on the outside looking in.
Ferguson was the pick of the bowlers in the T20 series and brings serious heat, but he finds himself locked out of test reckoning at the moment, while New Zealand’s full-strength test side has three wicketkeepers — Watling and the Toms, Latham and Blundell — while Tim Seifert watches on.
These are good times to be a New Zealand selector.
2. Devon Conway is a keeper
Not as in a wicketkeeper, clearly, but a “this guy is going to score a lot of runs for New Zealand” kind of way.
Basing that assessment off two T20 innings against a relatively threadbare attack might be an overreach but it’s not as if Conway played typical T20 innings. He looked nervous initially at Eden Park but played a crucial role in getting the chase back on track with Neesham.
At Bay Oval, he was second fiddle to the explosive Phillips but his balance at the crease, his ability to score quickly with conventional shotmaking, mark him out as a talent who knows his game well.
3. The rain protocols need tweaking
It feels like cricket hasn’t moved out of the ’70s with its protocols around rain. Twice at Eden Park, the umpires called the players from the field, and by the time they’d reached the boundary, it had eased. On one occasion, they entered again just as the rain was getting heavier.
No one likes to be the coot who complains that soldiers didn’t get to leave the trenches when rain fell because bowling especially can be hazardous in the wet, but with all the rain radar technology and drying equipment, there is still an inexcusable amount of time lost getting players back on the field.
If players leave the field because the rain is too heavy, there should be provisions to re-enter when the rain lightens, not stops completely. Player welfare is important but so, too, are paying customers.
Cricket has to do weather better.