Patel stars for Bears
THE stats don’t tell the full story, but they’re a good place to start.
In 90 games for Wellington, since his debut in 2000, offspinner Jeetan Patel has taken 200 wickets at 39.90, including six five-wicket bags. But in two and a bit winters with English county Warwickshire, the 33-year-old has snared 126 victims at 27.50, with eight five-fors in his 35 outings.
You don’t need to be a mathematician to see there’s a disparity there.
Patel has some simpler explanations than that. One is the pitches he’s played on in England. They turn and any spinner on the New Zealand domestic circuit will tell you wickets don’t do that here.
Another reason is the amount of cricket. Spinners need overs and Patel gets plenty with the Bears.
And then? Well, a little help from your friends doesn’t hurt either.
‘‘We’ve got a left-arm bowler, Keith Barker, whose footmarks are fantastic for a right-arm spinner and that’s the dead set truth,’’ Patel said.
‘‘He lands exactly where I want to land the ball and he’s very good at manipulating the umpires. He really does encroach on the danger zone, but that certainly helps.’’ But the fundamental difference from here and there is turn. That enables Patel to go from being the defensive bowler he’s often had to be for Wellington, to an attacking one that Warwickshire expect to lead them to wins and trophies.
Whether the wickets are under or over-prepared, they turn. Wet or dry, they turn. Here the wickets can do a little for the quicks, otherwise they start true and stay true, leaving drift and bounce as the only weapons in a spinner’s arsenal.
‘‘Batters here don’t get tested on spinning wickets and when teams go away they certainly find out pretty quick that they haven’t been tested. They tend to have one or two options against spin and, as soon as they’re taken away from them, it’s ‘well, what do I do next?’ ’’
The diet of cricket in England has meant Patel’s own options as a bowler have expanded too. ‘‘You’re playing constantly, so you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel every time, because you’ve had a week off in between,’’ said Patel, who was Warwickshire’s player of the year in 2013 and has been resigned for next year.
‘‘You learn more from playing and training and that’s just the same for everyone. But, for me, I’ve got to bowl and bowl and bowl.’’
Problem-solving and turning bad days into good ones, or eliminating the bad ones entirely, have been the big things Patel believes he’s picked up from county cricket. He’s also changed his attitude from wondering what’s in this for me or how is this getting me in the Black Caps, to how can I help my team win this game. Temporary floodlights at Hagley Oval aren’t the only innovation for the HRV Cup Twenty20 competition which had a rain-affected start in Christchurch last night. The global sporting phenomenon of team mascots has arrived, too. The six happy, if not slightly maniacal, team mascots were unveiled at the season launch in Auckland and all had their stories to tell. Wellington skipper James Franklin posed next to the flaming Firebird, giving the city a second bird mascot after the Phoenix’s Ernie the Chicken. Word from the Basin Reserve is that auditions are under way for the lucky wearer of the Firebird’s head. The mascot will travel to away games too, we’re told.
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