A season of ifs and buts in a time of flux

Gary Stead and NZC hijacked the end-of-season wrap with a little big announcement, PLUS: The Boss' muse passes as an NHL great basks in Glory Days.

Are you buying or selling futures options on two of the most important figures in NZ cricket? Getty Images

The raw numbers are these.

The Black Caps played 35 games of cricket in a liberal interpretation of a ‘season’, starting with the tour to Sri Lanka in spring and the merciful conclusion of the home white-ball series against Pakistan on Saturday. They won 22 of those games, lost 12 and endured a no result in an ODI at Pallekele.

It was a relatively even split between 17 games played at home and 18 either away or on neutral territory.

There were 17 ODIs, 10 T20Is and eight tests, the latter figure made more unpalatable by the fact just three were at home. On the flip side of that, those eight contain three of the greatest, most improbable tests New Zealand have ever played — one in Bengaluru, one in Pune and one in India’s real temple of doom, Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.

Four tests were won, four were lost; 11 ODIs were won, five were lost (one no result); and seven T20Is were won, three were lost. New Zealand lost just three of 14 white-ball games at home, including both played at Eden Park. If, and it’s a big if, the Black Caps had won the Champions Trophy final, or had not woken up at least one test late against England, it might have been been considered an all-time great season… but they didn’t, so it wasn’t.

Gary Stead used 33 players across those 35 matches. Even accounting for the three formats, it’s a high number that speaks volumes about the fractured nature of modern cricket. Daryl Mitchell and Will O’Rourke were the only common factors in the XI that played the first of the 35 matches, the first test against Sri Lanka at Galle, and the final ODI against Pakistan at Bay Oval.

It should come as no surprise that Mitchell was one. The No 1-ranked cricketer in the country played 29 of 35 matches, two more than Glenn Phillips and four more than Michael Bracewell. O’Rourke (24), Mitchell Santner (23 and Will Young (21) were the only others to play more than 20.

T20 guns for hire Lockie Ferguson and Adam Milne played just one match each, though the former would have likely played more had he not been struck down by injury ahead of the Champions Trophy. Other notables were Kane Williamson and Devon Conway, who both moved from central to casual contracts, who played 13 and 11 matches respectively, and Finn Allen, playing without any form of contract, who kitted up for just five T20s.

Young, Rachin Ravindra (19), Mitchell, Phillips, O’Rourke, Santner and Ish Sodhi (11) were the seven players who represented the Black Caps in all three formats during this period.

Those to make their first appearances for New Zealand were Nathan Smith (12), Mitch Hay (17), Nick Kelly (3), Muhammad Abbas (3) and Rhys Mariu (2).

Those to definitively make their final appearances for New Zealand were limited to Tim Southee, although I would hazard a guess that Milne and Patel might find their path back to the national side blocked. In Milne’s case, the emergence of a crop of promising pace bowlers has shunted him down the depth chart, while subcontinent specialist Patel, who is 36, has a barren test programme ahead of him, but never say never. Josh Clarkson, who played two T20s in Sri Lanka, appears to have fallen out of favour, but is young enough to claw his way back.

Here are 10 particular points of interest from the long, but not always satisfying, summer of cricket.

1. From NZC today came some news that was anticipated, even if it remains opaque. Gary Stead’s role will be advertised, with the incumbent saying that if he does reapply, it will be for the test role only.

“I now want to evaluate my options but still feel I have coaching left in me, albeit not as head coach across all formats,” Stead said. “The next month will give me the opportunity to discuss the situation more with my wife, family and others. I’ll be in a better position to know whether I want to reapply for the test coaching position after this time of reflection.”

Interestingly, a split role was proposed, possibly by Stead himself, when he received his most recent extension, but the idea was nixed by NZC.

Stead has been in the role since 2018, when he took over from Mike Hesson and despite some criticism of the conservative style and selections (mostly with the test side), he has overseen some of New Zealand cricket’s greatest achievements, including the inaugural World Test Championship, the series whitewash in India, strong ODI World Cup campaigns in 2019 and 2023, and a World T20 final in 2021. Although not alone in this, Australia has proved to be his kryptonite and, more worryingly, Bazball has carved his sides up in six of eight tests, with only the Miracle at the Basin and the deadest of dead rubbers in Hamilton last year on the positive side of the ledger.

The drums seem to be beating for Rob Walter, the Joburg-born former Central Districts coach who remains domiciled in New Zealand, to take a role at NZC.

Arguably, the most important role to be filled is that of high-performance GM Bryan Stronach, the highly regarded behind-the-scenes facilitator who has recently resigned. At this point, he is still in charge of the Black Caps coaching appointment process.

2. The change of captaincy from Southee to Latham in tests, and from Williamson to Santner in white-ball cricket, signalled an ever-so-gentle changing of the guard. Both enjoyed strong starts to their fulltime reigns, with Latham in charge for the Indian test series — if you still find yourself lazily sitting back and watching highlights from those tests, you are not alone — and Santner leading New Zealand to the Champions Trophy final. They’ve been around for a long time under Stead, so don’t expect any radical repositioning of the team’s style or culture — unless a new coach demands it.

3. Williamson turning down his central contract was a massive moment in the sport that we might not appreciate the significance of just yet, but will soon enough. Initially painted as a one-off to take advantage of a well-paid opportunity at the SA20, he will almost certainly play the remainder of his international days on a casual or non-contracted basis and those days look increasingly numbered. He has recently made quite pointed comments, by his standards anyway, on the unworkability of the cricket calendar and is an advocate for demarcated international and franchise windows. He also said that while he, as a young cricketer hoping to make his way in the game, saw test cricket as the focus and the beacon, today’s players don’t, so we might see an unspooling of the current contract system to something more reflective of the modern landscape.

Williamson’s disdain for bilateral white-ball cricket was writ large when he made himself unavailable for Pakistan’s recently concluded tour to deliver AI-fuelled observations in Hindi at the IPL, and his county commitments mean he will miss the test and white-ball tour to Zimbabwe in the winter.

There remains hope that if Williamson’s schedules are carefully managed, he might have a few more blue-chip test series in him — the next home summer is a write-off, but there are upcoming test tours to England and Australia — and a final ODI World Cup in southern Africa in 2027, when he will be 37. Then again, we might need to brace for the possibility that after playing international cricket for close to 15 years, he could pull the pin at any moment.

4. Ravindra had an imperfect summer but was, on balance, the best player of the extended season. His highs were impossibly high, including a tone-setting 134 in the first test against India at Bengaluru and two centuries at the Champions Trophy. He also recorded the highest score by a New Zealander in the terrible two-test series in Sri Lanka. To balance it out a little, he was poor against England, often losing his wicket wafting outside the off stump that looks imperious when it works, but extremely soft when it doesn’t.

5. Those who can also lay claim to having an excellent seven months include Henry, who is as close to inevitable as it gets, O’Rourke, Santner and, of course, Williamson. There were a number of others who contributed big things at vital times, including just about anybody involved in the India tests (especially Young, who won player of the series and almost made you forget Williamson was absent), but the five aforementioned were the ones who most consistently caught my attention. That’s a nebulous metric, but comparing numbers across the three formats and coming up with a definitive reading of who contributed the most is going to lose out to ‘feelings’ at this juncture.