The true brilliance of BJ Watling
BJ Watling has been damned with so much faint praise these past few days that he must be on the fast elevator down to hell. The 34-year-old keeper has been called New Zealand’s little battler, a gutsy grinder, dogged, bloody-minded, restrained, steadfast, tenacious and any other adjective that starts with dull. It is hopelessly unfair. Watling is one of the most brilliant cricketers of the modern age.
When I am talking about brilliance, I am referring to a brilliant mind. Watling’s powers of concentration are superhuman. His ability to read the rhythms of a game are nigh on perfect. He is a cricketer who builds beautiful relationships in an often selfish sport and destroys other teams.
Watling has scored eight test centuries in his career to date, seven as a keeper. Only Les Ames, Andy Flower and Adam Gilchrist, the greatest of them all, have scored more as a wicketkeeper. But it is the nature of Watling’s centuries that count. Six of them have led to victory, two to a draw. His mind is at its keenest when it matters most.
To understand the value of Watling to this New Zealand side, it is worth looking at the renowned book Moneyball which looked at how statistical theory revolutionised baseball. While old baseball coaches swooned over the big sluggers, a geekwith-a-screen worked out that the guys with the highest on-base percentages was where the real value in the market lay.
This is Watling. He gets on base time and time again. And if on-base percentages are invaluable in baseball, then batting partnerships are invaluable in cricket.
Watling is the king of cricket’s ballroom. He is calm, he has humility, he blunts the bowlers and he runs like the clappers between the wickets. He makes the bloke at the other end feel like an alpha male. He is the perfect partner.
It is no coincidence that it was
Watling who started Brendon McCullum on his way to the famous triple century. The score was 94-5 when Watling came to the wicket and India were all over New Zealand. The scene was set for McCullum, king biffer himself, to go out in a blaze of glory.
Watling batted for 367 balls for his 124 and introduced India to a feeling of despair. Together McCullum and Watling – and Watling is nearly always mentioned second in these dispatches – put on 352. From a position of near hopelessness, New Zealand drew.
But curiously that is not the highest partnership for New Zealand’s sixth wicket. That belongs to Kane Williamson and, let me see, oh yes, it’s Watling again. New Zealand were playing Sri Lanka and were 135 behind on first innings and 159-5 in their second when Watling came to the crease. The keeper scored 142 runs as he and Williamson put on an unbeaten 365 that set up
‘‘Typical Watling. He’s the cricketer you don’t notice.’’
another improbable victory.
You won’t hear any self praise from Watling, who says he is a limited cricketer. He says he is not even one of the best in his position. ‘‘I think there’s some quality keepers going around who are also fantastic batsmen. So I don’t look at that too deeply… Winning a test match and having a beer at the end of it and knowing you’ve put in five days of hard work to try and achieve that – that’s why you play the game. I’m happy with that.’’
Yet consider this. When he finally got out against England, having become the first New
Zealand keeper to score a test match double-century, Watling had batted for 976 minutes in test cricket since the last time someone had snaffled his wicket. That is over 16 hours. He now holds New Zealand record partnerships for both the sixth and seventh wicket. Williamson is the only other man who appears twice on the list.
But that is Watling. He keeps on doing it. When New Zealand won away from home against Pakistan, it was Watling’s 77 not out that set up victory in the match and the series. New
Zealand were 72-4 when he came to the wicket. No-one remembers the runs like they remember Ian Botham’s famous runs against Australia but they were just as crucial to victory.
Typical Watling. He’s the cricketer you don’t notice.
So many New Zealanders will think that McCullum is a greater test cricketer than Watling, whereas the stats prove that they could not be more wrong. There is a grand canyon between their averages and their influence as a test match keeper-batsman.
We prefer Beauden Barrett to Grant Fox; Arnold Palmer to Gary Player or Seve to Nick Faldo; Roger Federer, of course, to Novak Djokovic; Luka Modric to N’golo Kante. We are seduced. We are bewitched. We see the ‘stars’ do things that are scarcely imaginable. But we miss the brilliance of the ‘‘little man’s’’ mind because it is invisible.
There was a television discussion the other day about which keeper should be in a current world XI. Now someone might have pointed out that Watling has a poor record against Australia and has struggled in India, the only two marks in the debit column. It is the only argument against Watling, and not sufficient, it didn’t occupy anyone’s mind.
They were too busy trying to think of someone, anyone else. In the end they arrived at Quinton de Kock. And you just knew the reason why. De Kock is a swashbuckler. Never mind that he averages two runs less than Watling, has three fewer centuries, is a poorer keeper and most importantly of all, has not forged the partnerships and victories that Watling has. De Kock’s a champagne cricketer, like MS Dhoni who also suffers when you compare test match records.
The fine Sri Lankan correspondent Andrew Fidel Fernando put it very well when he wrote: ‘‘If New Zealand are the team that do great things that barely get noticed in the wider cricket world, BJ Watling is the New Zealand of New Zealand.’’
Oh well, the little big man will be happy with that. For the rest of us, we applaud BJ Watling’s true brilliance and are happy to buy him a beer.