Crucket

Those of you who tuned out at the fall of Guptill’s wicket yesterday just may have missed a little bit of New Zealand cricket history in the making. I don’t want to put the mockers on the two them (after all, Ryder is just one off-field indiscretion away from losing his place and Taylor has suffered a big form slump in only the second year of his international career), but Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor should be the backbone of New Zealand’s batting for years to come. Together and individually, they ought to break most of NZ’s batting records.

I wonder if the Indian followers of this series fully understand the significance of Ryder and Taylor announcing themselves in this way. To do that, you have to appreciate the bowel-evacuating terror felt by NZ fans when Stephen Fleming announced his retirement from test cricket, so soon after losing Nathan Astle (along with the fading away of Craig McMillan, Mark Richardson and Scott Styris), leaving us with batting stocks bereft either of ability or experience. The only hope to cling to was two, or either one of two, young tyros. And that is very slim hope.

Serious cricket fans had been following Jesse and Ross from their age-grade days. They were both clearly gifted, but it was an open question as to whether they would make it in the NZ team. Taylor has a natural rashness that can get the better of him and Ryder has issues outside cricket to deal with. But with yesterday’s partnership they have both fulfilled their early promise to some good degree, and they did it together. In the NZ context, this partnership has something of the significance of (and let’s just be clear that I am only making the most superficial of comparisons) Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli’s 1988 schoolboy heroics.

I have graphed the partnership (rather less explicitly than my last such effort). This graph shows the accumulated score for each of the first 6 batsmen (the last two * of course):

Wouldn’t it be most fair for umpires to tend towards giving greater benefit of the doubt to a struggling team? I think it would, though I suspect in reality the opposite tends to happen. I mean, the Aussies never frickin’ seem to have their appeals turned down.

It is frankly inconceivable that Tendulkar’s catch off McIntosh was given without consultation with the third umpire after the precedent with Ryder’s catch off Dhoni (for which the on-field umpires conferred and consulted with the third umpire before giving it not-out). Both catches were equally dubious and the umpires should have treated them the same.

But what can you do but grumble. If the referral system was in place, nothing would have changed. Even though Tendulkar’s catch was equivalent to Ryder’s, if it had been referred by McIntosh, the third umpire wouldn’t have changed the on-field umpire’s call. It would be easier in a way however to be able to complain about been done in by “the system” than to feel hard done by inconsistent umpiring.

Day 1 was so bizarre, two collapses and a record-breaking partnership, that I wanted to see how the innings would look if we could view it as a whole. So I graphed it. This is what a partnership that makes up 2/3 of an innings looks like:

And for comparison, here is the – considerably less dramatic – as yet incomplete – Indian innings:

In the middle of the ODI series, where Indian were flaying the Black Caps, Stuff were exclaiming that Vettori was holding onto his no. 1 ranking. Not likely. By the time that article saw print Vettori had already dropped to 2nd, as the recently updated rankings now show. Vettori has now in fact dropped to 5th, after going wicketless in Auckland.

Kyle Mills managed to hold onto this spot at 3, thanks to his 1/27 in Auckland. Jacob Oram dwindled a bit, dropping from 14 before the series to 19 afterwards. Patel and Southee also slipped, while O’Brien, Ryder, Elliott and Butler don’t even make it into the top 100 (they are, respectively, 118, 137, 131 and 127).

Somehow I expected things to be worse for our bowlers.

Amongst the batsmen, Ryder reached a career high of 47, which is quite impressive considering he was ranked 77 before the series. Guptill was similarly successful; starting the tour at 72 and reaching 44 by the end.

Our highest ranked batsmen remains Taylor, who has slipped out of the top 20 over the series to sit at 23. McCullum is also in the 20s, at 27, where he started the series.  Styris drops into the 30s, despite not getting a bat in his one game, though that will include some degradation from missing the Chappell–Hadlee. Oram’s 8 runs in 3 innings pushes him into the 40s.

Elliott dipped slightly from 57 to 60, though that could have been as bad as 65 if it wasn’t for his furious cameo in Hamilton. Neil Broom just squeezes into the top 200. Kyle Mills didn’t improve his batting ranking much, though he finishes at 19 as an all-rounder. The biggest mover of all was Peter McGlashan,whose late innings heroics in Hamilton boosted his ranking from 329 to 235.

A most consoling of consolation wins. NZ defeat India by 8 wickets with 118 balls remaining. Not just a win, but a thumping. A dramatic turn around. It is in keeping with this series that the game should firstly be rain affected and secondly be so one-way.

The first three completed matches were determined by India’s strength, a powerhouse batting line up that can put any game beyond reach. Whereas tonight’s match showcased New Zealand’s strengths, difficult bowlers who can keep the score down and competent batsmen who can chase down almost any total.

It was a frustrating series, with all the rain, but an exhilerating series, with over 2000 runs scored at about 6.5 an over. There were some amazing performances. Sehwag was a sensation of course, in his most devastating series performance to date. 299 runs, 74.75 average, 150.25 strike rate. Tendulkar was masterful too, with the highest score of the series of 163. Ryder also with his 224 runs at 56.25 by 106.63 deserves to be lauded.

The Raconteurs:

Love this image from the Herald, from an article extolling the strengths of our exciting top four, McCullum, Ryder, Guptill and Taylor, showing them all flourishing their blades.

The Indians of course have brought along debatably the best ODI top order currently in service. (That would be a fiery debate however.)

Let’s see how the two top four compare head to head.

Not entirely flattering to the New Zealanders in terms of ranking, with an average of about 50 compared to an average of about 12 for the Indians. However, the stats don’t look vastly different (except maybe the rather unfair comparison between McCullum and Tendulkar). Based on these averages, we’d expect the Indians to score about 150 from about 29 overs. Whereas the New Zealanders will score 160 off about 31 (admittedly rather skewed by Guptill’s stats). Pretty much dead even.

Indian have an extremely good middle order in Dhoni alone, but NZ have Vettori and Mills in their bowling line up. You’ve got to expect this to be a close run series. I’m picking 3-2 to New Zealand.

The top-order batting clique that we sent over to Aus looked pretty damn strong and possibly the strongest we have to call on: Ryder, McCullum, Guptill, Taylor. So Ryder has to go and spoil it by having a sore shoulder. There seems to be a good chance that he won’t play in the series at all.

And who do they choose to replace him with? Craig Cumming, who we last saw three years ago scoring a forgettable 13 – in fact you might have forgotten entirely that he ever played ODIs.

This is a dramatic weakening of our top order. In the 12 matches they have respectively played, Cummings has scoring 161 runs and Ryder 330. How is it that our second tier is half as strong as our top selections?

Jesse Ryder has been dropped for the 4th ODI for a drinking indiscretion. Bugger! Seeing Jesse get through a whole tour of Bangladesh, a visit to Australia and 95% of the West Indies tour, I had forgotten that he was on the razor’s edge. I had started to get my hopes up and imagine a New Zealand team with a world class batsmen once again.

I think we just have to get used to the fact that Ryder is only good until he loses his spot in the team, for suspension or worse. He has enormous potential and we will no doubt see some great things from him, but we’d be inviting dissappointment to pin too great a hope on him.

The newspapers are all over the selections for the West Indies series. Rather than rephrase the debate in my own words, I thought I would look at the selections separately, starting with the batsmen.

Jamie How

Looking at How’s record, he must be charmed. He averages less then 25, but has outlasted a slew of other openers: Redmond most recently, but Bell before him, as well as Cumming, Papps and Hamish Marshall, most of whom have not done much worse than How. He did show some real class in the two series against England earlier this year, with 428 runs in 12 innings, and the legacy of that should keep his place in the team secure for at least the rest of the season. Also, with a career now amounting to 30 innings, he is our most experienced batsman (excluding McCullum) – a senior member of the team, believe it or not. With no one else really challenging for the spot, How’s experience and proven ability are valuable.

Tim McIntosh

The dark horse in the selection as he is the only debutant. In first-class cricket he has the ability to score really big. Already this season he has scored a 191 for Auckland, and last year he scored a 268, with a 205 the year before that. The problem he has is that aside from these big innings, he doesn’t get a hell of a lot of runs. In each season, about half his runs come from these big single hauls. To my mind, we want the opposite in the Black Caps; we want an opener who doesn’t necessarily get big scores, but always gets a start. McIntosh is due for a trial though – the next opener through the revolving door – and he is one of my players to watch for the series.

Daniel Flynn

Has little in the way of results to show (still working towards his first test 50), but has impressed with his technique and approach to the game. Worth persevering with then. The talk is that he will be promoted to 3, which I have already suggested would be a good move. Flynn might not do much better at 3, but the test will be whether Ryder does better at 5.

Ross Taylor

Shouldered with the responsibility of being our chief batsman since Flem’s retirement, and has responded well. We know he’s got more in him and we know we’ll see it as he gains experience.

Jesse Ryder

The wunderkind has had a distinctly average start to his test career. However, as long as he keeps his head, there is no reason he should ever be out of the team.

Brendon McCullum

The gloss seems to have come off McCullum recently. He was a superstar earlier this year due to this one-day exploits and his IPL paypacket, with commentators gushing about him being the new Gilchrist. In tests he doesn’t nearly live up to that hype – however, he still is one of our best batsmen. I think he is best at 7, where he gets the chance to graft a bit with the all-rounders, but also pick up bonus runs with the tail-enders against tiring bowlers.