Where to for now Black Caps

Looking ahead and other plans for What I Talk About When I Talk About Cricket.

So on to the difficult second post, for which I thought I’d outline my intentions for this blog. I enjoy following cricket, maybe even more than I enjoy playing it these days, given my eyes are going and so my hand-eye coordination has gone to cack. So I’ll follow cricket with the gusto I’ve become accustomed to and every now and again I’ll pull my thoughts together and offer them up here. Later in this article I’ll talk about future New Zealand Test prospects, moving on quickly from that 3 zip loss to England (There’s no point raking over those coals, although thinking back over recent New Zealand England clashes, they do provide a fairly even contest with high drama and theatre, so maybe we need our own Ashes style trophy to play for against the Mother Country, with all the extra hype that brings. Perhaps we could burn Ben Stokes’ bat from the World Cup Final and put it in a vase, or something like that…).

We don’t play a lot of Test cricket, but it is still the format that means the most and is most memorable, and is certainly the one I am most drawn to. So I’ll go looking for some young up and comers that might help us reboot our Test team.

As for other topics of discussion here, I want to share a little about my playing days both here, where I am now, in the Central North Island and from my time in Scotland with the mighty Breadalbane. I’ll delve into some musings I have on first-class cricket from around the world and indulge my fondness for Almanacks, Annuals, Scorecards and Stats and look at players or performances that have wowed, astounded or inspired me. I’ll contemplate the philosophical side of cricket, and what it is about this bloody game that’s hooked me and keeps me coming back for more.

I also have a labour of love I plan to share. During all the Covid lockdowns and cancellations I created an idyllic Pacific paradise where pandemics don’t exist and red ball cricket rules the roost. It’s a completely fictional island world, somewhere north of New Zealand and East of Australia, inspired by those countries as well as Papua New Guinea, the West Indies and England, plus an Indian style love for the game. It exists in a time since past, a time before T20 cricket came along to threaten the fabric of the first-class game, like some bat wielding Thanos. There’s a King and a Prince and a burgeoning indigenous population that loves the game just as much, if not more so, than the people who transported the sport. It reimagines the world and runs with the idea that cricket flourished in places like North America, continental Europe and other outposts like Japan, Argentina and other Pacific island nations like Fiji and Samoa. It’s a pipe dream and a complete fantasy, but during the height of the virus that ripped through the world and it’s sporting landscape, it was a place of relief and respite. The Antipodes, as I’ve called it, have a host of first-class teams, from Kingsland to the Highlands, Eastern Districts to Southbridge, North Beach to Gold Valley and more, and the Americans are coming for a full, old style tour and 5 Test series, led by their big, burly and bearded captain, Buck Bronson.

For now though, I’ll return to the real world and rip into some navel gazing. Despite the poor result of the England tour, the Black Caps Test team has a solid core of players we can build a transformative squad around over the next five years or so. Kane Williamson, god-willing and elbow allowing, will return to form again soon and has 3 to 5 years left in him yet, at least, while Trent Boult and Tim Southee have earnt the right, and seem savvy enough, to play on until they call time on their own careers. Tom Latham is a lock, for now, at the top, while Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell are all class, and with Tom Blundell looking solid at seven, and captain Williamson (or maybe not??) we have a core of batsmen who are in their early 30s and are ready to put runs on the board. Will Young deserves to be persevered with, while Henry Nicholls is tapping his toes at the last chance saloon. His average has dipped below 40 now and we need to have a high bar for our batsmen. Kyle Jamieson is 27 and fitness allowing will continue to develop as a bowler and an all-rounder, while Neil Wagner has fashioned a Test career to be extremely proud of, and probably deserved more of a shot in England. At 36 however, he may not have long left, although he’s a fighter and he won’t go away quietly. Lockie Ferguson and Adam Milne are the pacemen we’d love to see in the whites, but their focus has seemingly shifted to the white ball formats, which is obviously kinder to their bodies. Matt Henry is mercurial at best, as is Colin de Grandhomme, our laconic icon who balances the side well but has struggled with injuries of late.

Another struggle is our outlook on spin. Ajaz Patel suffers from geographical bias and is often not afforded the chance in New Zealand (or England) to bowl, for long periods if at all. About a year or so before his 10 wicket bag in Mumbai I saw him bowling for Central Districts A in Taupo at Owen Delany Park, trudging around in the wilderness, waiting patiently for the next sub-continent tour. He deserves a lot of credit for his stickability and for rising to the challenge when needed. Michael Bracewell was a weird choice and far from a frontline spin option, while other guys like Ish Sodhi, Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra have had a “turn” as well without turning heads. Sodhi is only 29 and has moved to Canterbury mainly for family reasons, but still harbor’s ambitions to play Test cricket, while Santner is maybe seen as more of a white ball bowler these days.

So to the provinces we go. Recently the 6 First-Class associations announced their first round of contracted players, and it’s here we’ll go looking for the next wave of talent. In Auckland they might just have an answer to the spin dilemma with a young man named Adithya Ashok getting wraps, although he is yet to play first-class cricket. Simon Keene is a young medium pace bowler who burst onto the scene last summer, taking 25 Plunket Shield wickets from 5 games at an absurd average of 14.28. The O’Donnell brothers, William and Robert, are chipping away on the first-class scene and more big runs this summer could catapult them into contention, while Mark Chapman is another potential candidate. Chapman has a solid enough first-class record with an average of 41.58 over 35 matches, and is in and around the New Zealand set-up with the shorter formats.

Northern Districts used 28 players last Plunket Shield campaign as they battled with Covid and International duties. They already have a strong contingent in the New Zealand set-up, and while they have a collection of early to mid career players, it seems like it will take some major performances to get any of them into contention for Test spots. Joe Carter and Henry Cooper perform at times, and Jeet Raval continues to battle away, while they have a host of bowlers who toil away.

One bowler that has left ND and headed south to Central Districts is Brett Randell, last years equal top Shield wicket-taker with 31 at 14.83. He’s 27 and could make a push for higher honour’s, while another CD paceman in Blair Tickner was with the squad in England. Doug Bracewell seems to have had his time in the Test match sun, while the aforementioned Milne has moved to Wellington and not completely ruled out bowling a red cherry again. Tom Bruce is another former short form Black Cap and he finished last summer with a hiss and a roar, scoring 502 unbeaten runs (90* vs Canterbury, 208* vs Northern Districts and 204* vs Auckland) to finish the Shield season with 858 runs at an average of 143. Dane Cleaver is another batsmen who gets big wraps around the place (mainly on the BYC podcast haha) and at 30 years old both Cleaver and Bruce could be coming into the form of their life. A veteran who will never play Test cricket but deserves an honorable mention is Greg Hay. He averages 41.88 over a first-class career that started in 2006, and will hopefully bring up a ton of first-class games this coming summer.

A collection of younger players have the potential to shine through for Wellington this summer and bolster claims for a call-up. Rachin Ravindra showed his undoubted potential with knocks of 217 and 46* in a one-off appearance for Durham in June, and has already saved a Test match for New Zealand, against India in Kanpur, although the last of his 3 Tests was the bad loss to Bangladesh at the Mount in January. He is still only 22 and could develop into a strong opening bat with a spin option. Troy Johnson (24) and Tim Robinson (20) topped the averages for Welly’s in last summers Shield campaign, both over 50. Johnson averages 50.06 after 12 first-class matches, with a top score of 194* against Otago in March, while Robinson has a smaller sample size of just 3 matches. Nathan Smith is an all-rounder who moved to Wellington from Otago and was equal top wicket taker (with Randell) with 31 wickets at 18.41, while he’s shown potential with the bat and has a first-class hundred to his name. Ben Sears is a fast bowler to watch, having already played T20 cricket for New Zealand in September of last year, while Jimmy Neesham seems to have become a T20 gun for hire (or a white ball specialist at least), although at 31 it would be sad to see his Test career behind him. He is looking at a move to Auckland and wants to continue representing his country.

Canterbury have a host of young players with fair to middling first-class records. Cam Fletcher, Ken McClure, Cole McConchie, Chad Bowes and Leo Carter all average around the late 20s to mid 30s in first-class cricket, while Will Williams, Henry Shipley, Ed Nuttall, Sean Davey and Fraser Sheat are pace bowlers with solid if unspectacular records. Fletcher and Williams are probably the most likely for higher honours, with Fletcher being included in the Test squad to England as a wicket-keeping batsman option, while Williams was a top performer in last season’s Plunket Shield and has recently been plying his trade at Lancashire.

Glenn Phillips is a centrally contracted player who has made the move south to Otago from Auckland to join forces with his younger brother Dale. The elder Phillips has a touch of the McCullum’s about him and could potentially bring a Baz-ball mentality to the Black Caps Test side. He played his one and only Test against Australia at Sydney in 2020 when all hope was already lost, and he made a 50 and a duck. He can keep and bowls a bit too, and has been around the various T20 comps where he has performed well at times. His little bro Dale could also develop and will have extra motivation now with his brother by his side. Hamish Rutherford was included in the England tour squad and continues to make runs, however he’s not necessarily beating the door down with big hundreds, more constantly tapping at it. 171 on debut against England at Dunedin in 2013 will likely be his pinnacle, although I am sure he would love to add to that if he ever gets another crack at Test level. Jacob Duffy is a toiler who has had his moments and could yet offer something to the Test side. He did take 5 for 66 and eight wickets for the match in a big Kent win recently, although the next match against Surrey he got carted for 0 for 158 off 24 overs. A first-class bowling average of 33.61 doesn’t scream Test success, but you never know. Michael Rippon is an interesting one. A left arm wrist spinner who recently performed admirably for the Netherlands against New Zealand in their recent ODI series, he now gets a chance in the Black Caps as they head to Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands for a host of T20Is. A solid left handed bat as well, with some strong performances he could make a shake at a Test call-up, although as is common with most spinners in the New Zealand set-up, he won’t likely get much of a shot.

There are a raft of options around for the Black Caps Test side moving forward, although not necessarily a huge array of opportunities. Their next Tests are likely to be against Pakistan in December-January sometime, as yet unconfirmed to the best of my knowledge, before two more 2 Test series at home, this time against England and Sri Lanka in February-March of 2023. In between times there are a host of T20s and ODIs, including the T20 World Cup in Australia. So maybe I should write about those. The truth is, I’ll probably watch them when I can (BTW I’m not a fan of Spark Sport, but that’s a story for another time) but in all honesty, I couldn’t really care less. Maybe I’ll try to, but Test cricket is where the real meat is, and sadly we have to be content with whatever scraps we are thrown.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and look out for my next post, coming Sunday, on the topic of Scorecards as Art and things of beauty.