Crucket

So some New Zealanders finally make it onto the IPL records (McCullum’s 84* in the recent Kolkata v. Bangalore match is currently the 4th highest score, and Taylor’s 81* off 33 sits just outside the top 5 scores, though is 5th on highest innings strike rates) and now Lalit Modi is casting doubts on the legality of the match. “Was Kolkata-Bangalore match fixed?” is India Today’s breathless title for the webpage showing the article more soberly titled “Lalit Modi hints at probe into Kolkata-B’lore match”.

The article quotes a stern Lalit Modi: “There is an anti-corruption unit. We will look into the TV footage and investigate about Hodge’s presence in the hospitality box.” It seems Hodge’s omission from the playing squad was surprising (leaving him free to enjoy the hospitality of the people funding the match fix one must presume) and that by the 15th over Bangalore were heading for a loss, then shockingly turned things around and won.

As much as I would love for there to be a juicy corruption scandal in the IPL, this doesn’t look much like it. Firstly, if you are going to arrange for someone to be involved in throwing a match, surely it would be best to have them on the field. Secondly, Bangalore were always on target to win, despite Kolkata racking up their highest total to date, so there was nothing suspicious there. And thirdly, aren’t you supposed to fix matches to bring about an against the odds result? Paying Kolkata to lose is hardly money well spent.

The defeat on Sunday of Kyle Mills’ Mumbai Indians by Taylor and Ryder’s Royal Challengers Banglalore marked the half way point of the IPL qualifiers.

While the tournament has been fairly subdued compared to last year in terms of action, it is shaping up to be a competitive run to the semis, with everyone except Kolkata well in with a chance. The New Zealanders haven’t contributed much to this however…well, maybe McCullum is contributing to Kolkata’s misfortune.

Brendon McCullum – Kolkata Knight Riders

McCullum’s star burnt brightly but briefly in last year’s tourney – he only played 4 matches but scored 188 runs at more than 2 runs a ball. He was, perhaps, rewarded for his performances by being made captain this year. You can read about his being made captain, though the story has many more sides. You can also read the inside word (or a dramatisation of, at least) on McCullum’s team, though the outside word is just as dismal. In short, the Knight Riders are crappity crap. Just one win and an NR in the first part of the tournament. As captain, Brendon knows he is accountable, and he has offered to quit if they don’t make the semis (and they won’t). He has been garnering a fair bit of sympathy though.

His biggest problem is that he hasn’t been leading from the front. By last Sunday he had scored a mere 50 runs from 7 innings, less than his average innings score last year (his average this year is about 7 so far). And that has come at about 2 runs every 3 balls.

Daniel Vettori – Delhi Daredevils

Delhi have had the strongest start to the tournament of all the teams; by Sunday they had 4 wins out of 6 games. Vettori’s contribution to this was 7 wickets @ 19, including a 3/15. A very good haul from his 5 games, though it might be fair to say he is riding the momentum of his team.

Jacob Oram – Chennai Super Kings

Oram has knocked 50-odd runs and knocked over 3 wickets in the 4 games he has had for the Chennai Super Kings, playing turn about with Andrew Flintoff it would seem. A decent performance, though he was in the news more for suggesting the IPL is a bigger priority for him than tests.

Jesse Ryder – Royal Challengers Bangalore

A real disappointment considering the expecations. Started out his IPL career with ducks in his first two matches. He has had one good knock of 32 in his 4 innings, but the fact that his overall aggregate is just 34 emphasises his poor overall performance. You could well imagine him to be nervous, though he never seems to show it, but it could just be Bangalore – they’re a team so lacking in spunk that even tearaways like Ryder and Pietersen get dragged down.

Doing great work as a part time bowler as usual. 3 wickets at 30, but under 7 an over.

Ross Taylor – Royal Challengers Bangalore

The other half of the stoner twins. Also picked up a duck in his first match, but is double Ryder’s tally (as of Sunday). Neither here nor there and hence pretty much invisible.

Scott Styris – Deccan Chargers

Also invisible. Only given 2 matches as of Sunday, with only one turn at bat (for 14). Outstanding bowling though, taking 5 wickets @ 12.8.

Kyle Mills – Mumbai Indians

Missing in action. Not given a run in any of Mumbai’s first 7 matches. Not a fair way to treat one-day cricket’s no. 2 bowler. I guess the recent series with India has damaged his reputation.

So, a real disappointment so far. A good record by Vettori more than matched by terrible performances by Ryder and McCullum, McCullum’s lasting for 7 matches. With Oram, Taylor and Styris phoning in some pretty average efforts. It would have been nice to see at least one standout performance from the six of them. Still, it is still early on. After all, Taylor has only faced about 10 overs in total, just as an e.g. Any of them, and Mills, could put on some fireworks in the second half.

For the record, the highest score for any Kiwi is 41* for Oram and the best bowling is 3/15 by Vettori.

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):

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.

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 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.