Notes from the Basin #4
Not your normal Monday newsletter.
The Bounce would normally wrap up the weekend of sport in this space but honesty is the best policy and the truth is I’ve found New Zealand’s battle at the Basin so engrossing I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything else. To that end, the usual Monday newsletter will push out by a day. As a makeweight, this cricket-only newsletter is in front of the paywall.
ENGLAND 435-8 dec & 48-1
NZ 209 & (f/o) 483
Four top-of-head thoughts from day four.
1. That can’t happen, Michael.
On a day that featured a lot of good stuff from the home side, it feels cruel to lead on a negative but there’s no way to get around the fact that Michael Bracewell’s brainfart is shaping as THE moment of this test.
This is Bracewell’s sixth test. He has already racked up a career’s worth of soft dismissals, but the latest moved beyond that into sleepless-night territory.
Trotting back for the easiest of threes after Tom Blundell whipped Jack Leach through midwicket, Bracewell failed to slide his bat and was caught short after a powerful Ben Stokes throw was met with a smart piece of Ben Foakes’ glovework.
There’s no way to make him feel better about it. It was lamentable. While he might have joined an illustrious club, it’s not a club you want to be part of.
Bracewell’s calamity was costly on multiple levels: it was schoolboy cricket; it denied Blundell a run as he edged towards another three-figure score he wouldn’t get; it happened in the 159th over, before a third new ball that he is equipped to handle, but as it was it wasn’t required, because; it exposed a tail that can’t defend against the turning ball.
England were flagging, ground down by superb top and middle-order resistance. Suddenly, 478-6 became 483 all out as Leach (5-157) ripped through the remaining wickets.
The rugby analogy might be that Bracewell dropped the ball with nobody around him and the line open, but it was slightly worse than that: he dropped it with the line open and nobody around him because he was talking with his mate in the crowd.
What Bracewell cannot do is let the open wound of that dismissal bleed into his bowling, as it appeared to tonight judging by the way he kept dragging it down to Ben Duckett.
2. Class is permanent.
The above cliche is not actually true (look at the indignities of Ricky Ponting’s final year, for example), but it lasts a long time.
Kane Williamson’s 26th test century won’t go down as one of his most sparkling, but even if it was light on signature shots and pretty little pictures, the big picture will stay with me for a long time to come.
When he came to the crease yesterday, Williamson was coming off the back of three failures in the series, the third coming from such a flimsy waft at nemesis James Anderson that you could be forgiven for asking if his days of authority were waning.
The thing about Williamson, though, is he lets other people worry about those sorts of things. It would never cross his mind to dig deep into the world of introspection. To borrow a line from my mate in the commentary box Daniel McHardy, if you could go inside the mind of Williamson and listen to his internal monologue, it would be the sound of a gentle Mt Maunganui breeze.
His answer to the problems posed by cricket is to bat. To bat in the way he knows; to bat in the way that he feels will best serve his team.
That’s it.
He might not be the most dynamic or classical batter New Zealand has produced, but he is the purest and that’s what this innings was - pure, unadulterated batsmanship.
His partnerships with Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell were also fascinating case studies in the subtle differences between form and class.
Mitchell (54 from 54 balls) and Blundell (90 from 166) are in form. They’re seeing the ball early and they’re seeing it big. They’re cashing in with big, ballsy shots.
Williamson, on the other hand, knew the only chance New Zealand had of preventing defeat was for him to bat for a day or longer.
So he did, scoring 132 in 282 balls before he somehow got a leg-side tickle on an innocuous dribbler from the part-time seam of Harry Brook, which Ben Stokes almost apologetically reviewed when the half-hearted appeal was turned down.
It was about as unfitting an end to an innings of class as could have been drawn up.
2b. The unacknowledged record.
When Williamson flicked James Anderson through midwicket to move from 25 to 29 he passed Ross Taylor’s New Zealand run-scoring record.
It’s a totemic achievement.
A couple of weeks ago we watched an NBA game that was stopped for an eternity as LeBron James was feted for passing a point-scoring record.
It might be comparing apples and mandarins but I couldn’t help but think of that when the crowd stood as one, the English all clapped, play stopped for Taylor to hand Williamson the baton and pose for photographers before New Zealand’s greatest batsman did a slow lap of honour around the Basin Reserve.
Well, the crowd did stand as one and the English did clap. That’s the only true thing about the previous paragraph. Williamson didn’t even raise his bat.
3. They couldn’t, could they?
Probably not, but hey, after day two we were writing obituaries not only for this test but for an entire era of Black Caps test cricket.
But from Tim Southee’s six-hitting spree, through Devon Conway and Tom Latham’s 149-run opening stand through to Williamson’s century and what should have been Blundell’s, there has at least been some raging against the dying of the light.
New Zealand Cricket has announced free entry tomorrow as England try to advance towards the 258 target. A couple of early wickets and it might be the best place to be in the country and it won’t cost you a thing.
4. The Wagner problem.
Now the extra batter becomes a problem.
It’s a problem compounded by Neil Wagner’s emasculation.
With a middling target, New Zealand cannot afford Wagner to leak fast runs unless he’s taking regular wickets.
If England go after him, which, let’s face it, they probably will, Southee could be left with a scenario where he only has himself, Matt Henry, a relatively toothless Daryl Mitchell and a potentially fragile Bracewell at hand - eek!
Southee’s delivery to the walking wicket that is Zak Crawley aside, New Zealand bowled poorly with the new ball. That needs to change in a hurry.
Bonus thought
What the hell is going on at Auckland Cricket?
Eight games scheduled at Colin Maiden Park this season, eight games called off, the latest being Auckland’s scheduled Hallyburton Johnstone Shield one-dayer against Northern Districts.
Some of those abandonments were unavoidable due to pesky atmospheric rivers and cyclones, but many were.
Colin Maiden Park is a club ground, and not a great one at that.
The Eden Park Outer Oval cannot host international cricket and has a limited life span. Eden Park No1 is a rugby ground.
Look at brilliant scenes from the Bay Oval and the Basin over the past fortnight. It is an enduring cricket and civic disgrace that Auckland cannot provide its fans with a usable cricket ground.
