Notes from the (Bay) Oval #2
Blundell's 'perfect' innings, PLUS: The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be
England 325-9 & 79-2
NZ 306
Gazball strikes back.
Well, that might be a stretch, but despite all the hype around England’s approach and the resultant fireworks on day one, New Zealand have found a crack in the wall in this first test and are clinging on by their fingertips.
They did it their way, not England’s way, taking a comparatively sedate 82.5 overs to reach 306, a first innings deficit of 19.
They did that despite some serious and at times amateurish misadventures with the bat; they did that because they had a wicketkeeper who played the perfect innings at the perfect time.
Tom Blundell does not always get the credit he deserves. Having played the bulk of his career in the shadow of BJ Watling, Blundell had big gloves to fill and a job description that read, “Must score gritty runs in high-leverage situations.”
Coming to the crease at 83-5 is high leverage. Watching Devon Conway (77) and Michael Bracewell (7) gift their wickets at 158 and 182 respectively is high leverage. Nursing a tail that contains two test debutants is high leverage.
Scoring 138 in these circumstances is high quality.
We shouldn’t be too surprised, either. In his 23 tests he’s stacked up a bunch of notables, particularly with the bat:
Century on debut at No8;
Century opening the batting at a Boxing Day MCG test;
A string of 14, 96, 106, 24, 55, 88* on last year’s tour to England, where he and Daryl Mitchell consistently stood between New Zealand and humiliation;
Becoming the first wicketkeeper to score a century in a day-night test.
Blundell’s brilliance and Blair Tickner’s stubbornness (a gutsy 3 not out off 24 balls) dragged New Zealand back into a test they had largely been bystanders at.
Up until then, the batting had been watery.
Conway is compiling a remarkable record and played another pleasant knock here before playing one of the least remarkable shots of his career. There was no subtlety to what Ben Stokes was trying to do - run in, thump it in, try to draw a false shot - and it’s a perfectly valid tactic. You just don’t expect it to work against a guy who had looked so unruffled.
But there was Conway, trying to paddle-pull Stokes to long leg and instead shovelling it straight to Ollie Pope at a conventional square leg. Conway’s dismay was plain to see, with him coming close to equalling John Wright’s record for the slowest and most anguished departure from a test ground.
There was a fifth test century looming into view, but instead Conway (77) settled for his sixth test half century. The longest he has gone between 50-plus scores is three test innings - to the manner born.
Conway’s was the third of soft dismissal in a row. It wasn’t the last.
After the painstaking progress under the lights on night one, England didn’t need further leg ups, but received them when Neil Wagner (27) chipped tamely to mid on and Daryl Mitchell (0) shouldered arms to a ball headed for off stump.
Wagner, the nightwatchman, could be excused for having a dip; his runs were a bonus and included two big sixes. Mitchell could almost be excused for failing to cover Ollie Pope’s extravagant off cut. There could be no sympathy extended to Michael Bracewell (7), who narrowly avoided mid on with two heaves off Jack Leach, but had no such luck a third time.
It was a wretched stroke and far from the first time he has been dismissed in senseless fashion. There is mounting evidence that ‘Beastball’ needs serious modification to cut it in five-day cricket.
Quick singles
Should New Zealand have to bat against the new ball under the lights again, they would do well to be more positive. It’s not as if England were ever going to bat any other way but when it’s fiendishly difficult, you might as well try to score at the same time as survive.
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Although Stuart Broad should have been out second ball (a shocking blunder by Blundell and Scott Kuggeleijn, undoing some of their batting good deeds), the next evolution of day-night tests is to have specialist “nighthawks”, the term coined Ben Stokes. It makes sense. Just as England did not want to expose their best batter Joe Root to a newish ball and floodlit bowling, New Zealand should have look to protect their best in similar circumstances. I can see a day in the not-too-distant future when you even have nighthawks opening the innings.
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The ageless James Anderson and Stuart Broad became the second pair to combine for 1000 tests wickets in tandem, joining Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.
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Switching attention to the White Ferns, they were handed a favour by Australia this morning, whose 10-wicket demolition of Sri Lanka ruined the Asian side’s net run rate. The Ferns still need some ridiculous things to go their way to have any chance of making the semifinals - Australia needs to also destroy South Africa, and New Zealand must blitz their two remaining matches - but where there is life there is hope.
NZ v Bangladesh, Cape Town, tomorrow 2am, Sky Sport 1
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While England look to turn the screws on New Zealand cricket’s on-field summer of discontent, there is off-field issue still causing recriminations in cricket heartland.
The fallout over New Zealand Cricket’s switch from local digital scoring provider CricHQ to Australian-owned PlayHQ is still being felt at club, school and age-group level, with several club stalwarts telling The Bounce that the community game is now fractured.
Some clubs and teams have stayed on CricHQ (it is understood more than 3000 games were scored on the app pre-Christmas despite major associations trying to convince them to switch), some being scored on PlayHQ and others using the classic paper scorebooks.
As one club stalwart said: “If PlayHQ was any good, you’d say okay, let’s just get on with it, but it was a shambles to start with and despite all the promises, it’s still a f***ing shambles.”
The issues first surfaced in the New Zealand Herald in October, and was followed up with greater detail in Stuff before going quiet.
One club source said the issue had not gone away but they had been explicitly warned by their association chief not to criticise PlayHQ, as NZC tried to smooth out the gremlins affecting the switchover.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
Sport hasn’t been front of mind in New Zealand this week, particularly not for those in the North Island affected by the devastation wreaked by Cyclone Gabrielle, however a couple of global rugby stories caught my eye.
Wales Online has been leading every day this week with stories about the potential players’ strike. The coverage has been exhaustive and centres around the players threatening not to take the field against England in the Six Nations to protest Wales Rugby Union’s proposed six-year deal with the regions that would see players’ salaries reduced, with opportunities for bigger bonuses. It has been reported that some of Wales professional teams have been close to insolvency, and former captain Sam Warburton supports the strike, saying the players have been shafted. Alun Wyn Evans says strike action is a very real possibility, while Warren Gatland tries the difficult balancing act of saying he supports the players’ cause, but not the strike.
The Guardian reports that with the USA’s failure to qualify for this year’s Rugby World Cup, Major League Rugby is at a crossroads as season six prepares to start.
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On a lighter note, the full Upshot Towers twitter thread on the Arsenal dressing room of the 90s (pre-Arsene Wenger) is wild.
THE WEEEKEND THAT WILL BE
What I’ll try to catch this weekend (after the cricket)
The Tasmania JackJumpers - I still find it bizarre that you’d name a basketball team full of really tall humans after an ant, no matter how venomous - held serve so the Breakers path back to the NBL finals all comes down to this…
NZ Breakers, JackJumpers, Game 3, Auckland, Sunday 6pm, ESPN
Australia tied themselves in knots trying to counter the turn at Nagpur, Tune in for their continuing adventures.
India v Australia, 2nd test, Delhi, today-Tuesday 5pm, Sky Sport 3
Everybody loves a good collapse, so people are now watching to see if Arsenal - one point from their past three matches - combust on the field like their manager Mikel Arteta appears to be doing on the sidelines.
Aston Villa v Arsenal, Villa Park, Sunday 1.30am, Sky Sport EPL
If you feel like it, you can watch Lydia Ko in the Bonesaw Classic.
On PlayHQ - Adrian Seconi at the Otago Daily Times was the first to write about the abomination, in mid Sept https://www.odt.co.nz/sport/cricket/new-online-scoring-system-place
And he has written at least one more article since then plus keeps sniping at it in his cricket coverage and columns.
The first article was well before so-called ‘scoring’ was attempted on PlayHQ so there was a lot of fobbing-off with ‘the admin is good’. But his concerns all came to pass. Now the only defender outside the Otago Association is an ex-Volts coach
NZC just released a form of stats database for PlayHQ, but it’s on another website. That now makes FOUR different websites to use PlayHQ - one for admin, one for scoring, one for following games, and one for stats.
What were NZC thinking?
If only they thought about the kids and families and players and clubs and communities that make up the amateur game.