Defending not easy: Sodhi
Ish Sodhi says adapting to the different demands one-day cricket throws up is a challenge he’s relishing.
With Mitchell Santner returning to the Black Caps on Friday in their Twenty20 side, Sodhi is taking his opportunity to push his World Cup selection cause in the ODIs against Sri Lanka.
On Saturday, he produced 10 excellent overs of leg-spin in the win at Bay Oval in Mt Maunganui, which saw the Black Caps seal a series victory.
Sodhi’s figures of 3-55 were only partially worsened when Thisara Perera began his dramatic late assault in Sodhi’s final over.
‘‘It was a fantastic innings,’’ Sodhi said. ‘‘Any innings like that is obviously very special – I’d say nine times out of 10 they’d come up on the winning side but it was thanks to some early wickets that they didn’t have enough wickets in the tank to keep it going the entire 50 overs.’’
Sodhi had admirable flight and turn after bowling flatter and shorter in Thursday’s win.
‘‘I played a slightly different role to the first game,’’ he said. ‘‘Then I was more defensive with the wind. Today I felt I could attack a lot more. I came on when they’d already lost a couple of wickets. It landed a lot fuller, a lot more consistently.
‘‘It’s good for me to feel I can adapt to different situations. In the last game, I was trying to bowl defensively and get square because that wind was hissing over my shoulder.
‘‘Anything in their arc, like you saw with Thisara tonight, was always going to go out of the park.
‘‘In such high-scoring games, you try to find that balance between attack and defence as a spin bowler. While you always want to get wickets, I think it’s courageous to be able to bowl to a certain field and try to keep runs down as well.’’
He got backing from veteran batsman Ross Taylor.
‘‘Ish bowled really well and pushed his case for the World Cup,’’ Taylor said.
‘‘I’m sure in some of those games and grounds we’ll have to play two spinners. If Ish and Sants [Santner] bowl well, it bodes well.
‘‘Wickets are obviously the key – we were able to attack and it spun for him as well.’’
Sodhi said even defending scores well over 300 – as NZ did in both games – is difficult due to the evolution of white-ball batting and chasing.
‘‘The game of cricket is not an easy one, especially in this day and age. The batsmen are a lot more confident. They can take it a lot deeper and play all around the ground,’’ he said.
‘‘You can never really rest on your laurels.
‘‘It’s just the era of cricket. When I started six years ago, scores of 350 didn’t really happen as often as what they are now.
‘‘It’s something you’ve got to be aware of as a bowling unit and almost have a T20 mentality for 60-70 per cent of an innings.’’