New Zealand are magic

Trent Boult rips a ball past the outside edge. Matt Henry jars one into the splice. Grant Elliott backhands one past the stumps. Brendon McCullum chases a ball down like it’s a baby in a pram rolling towards a cliff. New Zealand are at Eden Park, but it feels like the Colosseum.

South Africa are present, but barely. After three overs they have 20, the next ten harvest 23, painfully eked out off the edge and the splice. A lot is made of Brendon McCullum’s tactical brilliance, but it’s overstated. What really sets him apart is his extraordinary commitment in the field (helped by his perpetual motion legs) and willingness not to let the game drift.

His captaincy is inventive, but like an inventor, sometimes it blows up in his face. It wasn’t a game changing mistake, but giving Trent Boult a seventh over in his first spell was the wrong move, as Boult dropped short repeatedly, showing that slight fatigue that should have been spotted and gave away twelve. 

Brendon McCullum’s natural leadership style has dovetailed with the current ODI playing conditions. As teams have put more emphasis on building through the innings and exploding at the death, McCullum has attacked with the new ball and forced opponents to pick their poison.

Either they attack and risk losing too many wickets, or they defend and reduce the platform to launch from. Australia made the former mistake, forgetting that in the battle between high class swing and big hitting, the bowlers will win. England made the latter mistake. 

But with the bat, where they’ve zigged, he’s zagged, swinging like a windmill at anything that comes along, and dispatching most of it into the outfield or the stands. For most teams, 59 is a decent score from an opener, but one in which the opener failed to see it through. McCullum doesn’t even think of seeing it through. If he did he could score 300.

Kane Williamson is so often a totemic figure in the New Zealand batting that, measured elegance the other pole to McCullum. Even though it seems silly to think it now, after he fell I almost conceded the game for them. It seemed like the perfect combination: a quick innings from McCullum to bring down the required rate, and a big one from Williamson to take it deep and leave the death over hitters a manageable task. 

But when he under-edged a pull, his reaction showed how crucial he knew his role was. The zing bails lit up and Williamson bowed his head and trudged off. When Ross Taylor ran out Martin Guptill, the other main candidate for a big innings, it was left to Elliott and Anderson.

Grant Elliott was batting a place too high. Grant Elliott’s bowling lacked much of anything. Grant Elliott barely made the squad. Grant Elliott won a World Cup semi-final with a six.

New Zealand are magic.

Selfishness and West Indies batting

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It’s clear that the West Indies don’t have a strong and united team. Perhaps the only thing they’re united on is abandoning tours. In India they left in body, in South Africa today they left in spirit. Are the West Indies’ best batsmen, the men who should be grafting runs, selfish?

Marlon Samuels is more arrogant than he has any right to be. Virat Kohli can say he has no respect for Mitchell Johnson if he’s just made 499 runs at 83.16 in the series, but can Samuels say that no spinner in the world can bowl at him with a Test average of 35.72?

He’s received, perhaps rightly, a great deal of criticism for getting caught at long on, precipitating another West Indies collapse, but the criticism from the commentators and pundits fell down in one crucial way. When Samuels had hit Harmer for two sixes and an aerially struck four, all with long on in place, he was applauded for the shots, but labelled “brainless” by Bob Willis for trying to do the same thing again.

A less obvious example of selfishness was Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Compare his batting with the tail to Kumar Sangakkara’s. The Sri Lankan legend built three significant partnerships with lower order batsmen to give his team an unexpected lead. He did that by taking as much responsibility as possible, giving his partners one or two balls an over at most whenever possible, helping them settle and even coaxing the odd defensive shot out of Rangana Herath.

While Samuels was chastised for taking too much risk, Chanderpaul (despite being the owner of an 69 ball Test century, proof he can take the attack to teams) seemingly refused to take responsibility, leaving tail-enders who either didn’t have the talent or the temperament to cope with a fired up Dale Steyn.

It would be difficult to blame him giving Jason Holder, an emerging all-rounder, the strike, and Jerome Taylor got out too soon to try to protect him. However, the ball after that wicket he blocked the last ball of an over, not even trying to get the single to protect the number ten, Sulieman Benn. Lo and behold, Benn nicked off against Steyn next over, sucummbing to bowling that was just too good for him.

Next, Chanderpaul took an ill-advised single off the fifth ball of that over, giving Shannon Gabriel possibly a whole over against Simon Harmer. Again Chanderpaul kept himself away from danger, responding to Gabriel’s call for a single off the fourth ball of that over then padding away the last ball of the over, not even trying to take a single to get to Steyn’s end.

Gabriel ended up facing ten of the fourteen balls in that last wicket partnership. The final indignity from Chanderpaul was running himself out taking a ludicrous single to get on strike for one ball, which he presumably would have left alone to give Gabriel the strike yet again.

Samuels will get more blame, but the utterly brainlessness came from Holder and particularly Taylor’s shots, and Chanderpaul’s utter lack of desire to take responsibility for shepherding the tail. You get the feeling that Chanderpaul thinks that if he gets a red-inker that he’s done his bit. He hasn’t.

Is he too old for this shit? Not physically or in terms of ability to score Test runs, but has Chanderpaul’s formidable mental strength been worn down by years of struggle? He’s just as good as ever at batting within himself, but has he lost the mental strength to be the main man, sometimes the only man. If he has, it’s time to go.

Tom Latham shows the value of simplicity

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It was Bill Shankly who said “Football is a simple game complicated by idiots.” Like all truisms, there’s more to it than that, and if you substituted football for cricket you’d get blank stares from some. Surely cricket is complicated in and of itself, they’d say.
Perhaps if you reverse the polarity of the phrase (to butcher a reference), it makes more sense for cricket. Cricket is a complicated game, made simple by geniuses. Tom Latham is hardly a genius, but other than David Warner, he’s the only batsman from outside the subcontinent to score a hundred in the UAE this year.

The method looked simple. Rahat Ali threatened, but mostly just created pressure, which Latham resisted. It was the three spinners, Zulfiqar Babar, Yasir Shah, and Mohammad Hafeez who looked to be the danger. But Latham had a plan. If it was full and straight, he’d stretch forward and defend. If it was off the stumps, he’d sweep, and if it was a bad ball he’d put it away. Apart from the occasional drive down the ground, that was it.

Shah went round the wicket, but found that pitching every ball outside off stump invited the sweep. Zulfiqar found Latham immune to his variations, and Hafeez tried to lure him into indiscretion, as he did Neesham, but found the opener steadfast.

He brought up his century with a shimmy down the wicket and punch of the ball down the ground for four. It took a fantastic ball to get rid of him, Rahat Ali reverse swinging a yorker into him to trap him LBW. Rahat set it up fantastically, swinging a couple away before a third darted back in to catch him plumb on the foot.

Rahat Ali was the other big performer on the day. 4-22 off 17 overs might just be the maximum he could have possibly squeezed out of the day. Like Latham, he kept it simple, that setup to get rid of the day’s centurion was the archetypal three-card trick. Southee succeeded in the most bit of incompetent bit of batting, edging a swinging ball once to be dropped, then in almost identical fashion the next ball to be caught.

When the ball wasn’t reverse swinging, all he had to do against them was to create pressure, forcing the lapses the like of which saw off both Williamson and Anderson, both chopping on to their stumps. Remarkably, before lunch he hadn’t conceded a run off the bat, the only blot on his figures a no ball from the previous evening.

With Latham and Rahat simplicity won the day. But for the rest of the New Zealand batsmen that simplicity was hard to come by. Turns out making something look simple can be quite complicated.

Papua New Guinea enter the ‘big time’

It doesn’t look like the big time. Tony Ireland Stadium in Townsville is an out-ground for Queensland, and used for the occasional international A game. It’s a sparse ground, and the matchup between Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong hasn’t attracted many spectators sitting on the grass banks, and only a few in the single stand.

But this is ODI cricket. That may be the only difference between it and many other games PNG have played against opposition like Hong Kong or other similar sized associates, but it is the biggest status most associates can aspire to, Test cricket being the closed club that it is. Whilst the whole system of different levels of international cricket is inherently ridiculous, it’s not going away anytime soon, so ODI status doesn’t just bring a new level of statistics, it brings greater opportunities to play the top associates and full members, and crucially, more money from various sources.

Their opening bowlers certainly proved up to it. Bowling their first ODI ball was Pipi Raho, small and off a short run-up, he didn’t  generate much pace, but some outswing. Like his partner at the other end, his action centres around a leap into the air before he hurls the ball down, something common to several of their seamers actions.

At the other end, Willie Gavera has a bit more pace. Another short-ish run, leap and a sling, but this time from a taller, rangier bowler. He was the one to take PNG’s first ODI wicket, with a length ball edged through to the keeper, and with his extra pace he tested out the back of a length area at times, something not many associate bowlers can do.

Aside from the players, the PNG kit is quite something. Black, with red and yellow trim, and an fantastic black cap with red and yellow hoops on the top. The effect, with their energetic fielding is of a swarm, buzzing around the batsmen, hurling in returns to the keeper, throwing the ball around amongst themselves.

It’s that fielding that got them their third and fourth wickets, a pull shot well held at mid-wicket, and a great slip catch, both off the off-spinner Assad Vala. His off-spin, added to that of Maharu Dai, and the leggies of Charles Amini give PNG a varied spin attack which picked up x wickets in the first ODI.

Despite that, they are still associates, so there’s some inconsistency. Maharu Dai caught well in the first game, but dropped one in the second. In the same over Norman Manua very nearly took a screamer down at fine leg.

The two teams made an intriguing matchup. PNG are small and tenacious, enthusiastic in the field, whilst Hong Kong’s batsmen stand tall with wide stances designed to belt the ball away. It was the Barramundis who had the edge. In years to come, PNG will be the answer to a trivia question: Which was the only country to win their first two ODIs?

The matches starting at midnight GMT meant that with PNG bowling first twice, I can only comment on them in the field. But with the bat three things stand out on the scorecards. Two successful chases, and a first ODI century, by Lega Siaka. Not bad for a first go.

Just like many club teams, but unlike most international teams, PNG cricket is a family affair. Only maybe the Pollocks can match the Amini’s. Chris Amini, batsman and medium pace bowler plays alongside his brother Charles, a leg-spinner. Their father Chris, and grandfather Brian both captained PNG and their mother Kune captained the women’s team.

Their first ODI may have been played in Australia, but PNG cricket are hopeful they can bring a ground up to ODI standards back home. What's this national stadium called? Amini Park of course.

The cricket ground and the ballpark

Oriole Park at Camden Yards: a great venue for baseball

Like most from the cricket watching world, my initial view of baseball was of a game that was so far removed from cricket, an Americanisation of the bat and ball game that doesn’t come close to the complexity of the greatest sport in the world. The 2014 MLB season is the first of mine as a baseball fan. My views have changed… to an extent.

First and foremost, I am still a cricket fan. But after watching a significant number of baseball games across the long season of America’s summer game, I started to appreciate the similarities and the differences that make two games.

One similarity is the way that both games are among the few sports to resist the trend towards identikit, out of town stadia. Sure, there are a few behemoths amongst both sports, most Test grounds in Australia, the Oakland Coliseum and Tropicana Field in baseball (incidentally a common factor in some bad grounds is sharing with another sport, be it AFL or NFL).

Yet, most grounds in both sports have some kind of identity and sense of difference. I’ve found myself supporting the surprisingly successful Baltimore Orioles this season, and watching them play on the TV at Camden Yards has been fantastic, for all the little eccentricities in the ballpark, remarkable for a just twenty year old stadium. 

There’s the huge long brick building - the former B&O Warehouse, incorporated into the design rather than demolished - out in right field. You’ve got the little enclaves of seats in centre and right field, the standing area on Eutaw Street, between the stadium and the warehouse and used when the seats have sold out, and I’m sure many other foibles and charms, nooks and crannies, known to those who’ve actually been to games in the ballpark, unlike me.

There are other architecturally interesting ballparks in the league, many built in the retro-modern movement of the last twenty years. One key factor that the identikit, built to the sky stadiums of other sports miss is the sense of context. Looking to cricket, the county game has grounds which offer this context, from the cathedral at Worcester, to the sense of being enclosed by people’s homes at Hove. 

Even in the Test grounds, where they are big enough that you miss that context, you see the context of continued development. Lord’s has the spaceship of a media centre, peering over the Compton and Edrich stands, as if sneaking a glimpse of the Victorian pavillion opposite. 

If you add to this the sense of differing playing surfaces and dimensions, cricket and baseball seem ever more alike in where they conduct their games. Every cricket stadium has a different pitch and outfield, a different boundary length and shape. Ever baseball diamond has a different distance to centre field, to left and right, and amount of foul territory. 

Two games, separated by much, but also together in the fight against the featureless monolith sports stadium. 

Fletcher's idea comes to fruition, and Cooks protégé upstages him

Just after Duncan Fletcher took over as England coach in 1999, England’s tail reached its nadir. Caddick, Mullally, Tufnell, and Giddens. A tail with Tufnell at number ten is something poor indeed.

That stung Fletcher into action. England’s tail got slowly better, not least with use of the buddy system in which throughout Fletcher’s tenure as coach, top order batsmen were paired with tail-enders, to give them throwdowns, coach them, and eke every little bit of batting talent out them.

Paul Collingwood nudged Monty Panesar to a couple of match saving innings. Marcus Trescothick coached Matthew Hoggard into a man who, with Ashley Giles, saw England through to an Ashes Test win.

Who was Jimmy Anderson’s batting buddy? For a while it was a man who, if you squint, looks remarkably similar as a batsman, and a man who hasn’t scored as many as Anderson did at Trent Bridge since 24th May last year against New Zealand. If you hadn’t guessed yet, it’s Alastair Cook.

It must be a little bittersweet for Cook to look on. All those years of coaching Anderson and he would have some pride in his protégé, but even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself, there would jealousy that a man with not even half the batting talent of himself could show up his shortcomings even more.

Still, the two ‘broke up’ as batting buddies nearly four years ago, so this recent success can’t be credited much to Cook.

Duncan Fletcher, in his guise as tail-ender coaxer, would have a rueful grin that his system, and his emphasis on tail-end batting, while it helped India, it also benefited England even more. But, if he was watching as a neutral, he would have been proud to see that he had been part of the game that set a whole host of records for tail-end batting, including the most runs ever by 10th wicket partnerships in a match.

Anderson eventually departed nineteen short of his hundred, caught driving at Kumar, by Shikhar Dhawan at first slip. That made it two innings in a row ending in disappointment. The disappointment of departing for a 55-ball duck to lose a match with a ball to go, and missing out on becoming the first number eleven to score a Test century aren’t exactly comparable though.

Jimmy Anderson might have had a pang of disappointment on missing out, but unlike last time, there were no tears.

McCullum wasn’t brave by anyone except Alastair Cook’s standards

As an England fan - despite how it seemed in my last piece - it’s tempting to cast an envious glance at other countries players. In days gone by, we'd stare longingly at Shane Warne - when not cowering in fear - thinking, "Why can't we have one of those?" When we did, he was called Ian Salisbury.

Now, as I watch West Indies play New Zealand, it could be tempting wish for Trent Boult, or Tim Southee, but most of all, I'd like to scoop out Brendon McCullum's brain, liquidise it, then inject the resulting cricketing goo into Alastair Cook.

Zombification aside, McCullum gets a lot of credit, and deserves most of it.  When he declared, setting a West Indies team with a long tail  308 in at most 98 overs, but likely a lot less given the weather forecast, he got more credit than he deserved. It was the only reasonable option, of course he took it.

That decision is only brave in comparison to timid, defensive modern captaincy. What would Alastair Cook do is unlikely to become a phrase on wristbands. What would BB McCullum do may not abbreviate well (WWBBMCD), but it's a far more exciting way to live.

The only dangerous factor was Chris Gayle, but his only real attacking zeal in the series came in a calculated blast at a run chase less than half the length. Could he have tried it for a bigger target? If he had, it could have been over in one ball or after a fifty ball double century.  Still, that would have been brave.

Rewind just over a year and think back to England's Second Test win over New Zealand. That was the last time Alastair Cook got a century, but it was also the first time his captaincy was seriously questioned. Up to that point, few were enthused by his style, but 2-1 in India shut up the doubters, and captaincy wasn't the problem when all three Tests were drawn in New Zealand on deathly dull pitches.

Then he deferred a declaration for about two hours more than most judges recommended. Still, England won the match, so wasn't he 'vindicated'? Well, by being ultra-conservative England gambled with time, just as capricious an enemy as their actual opponents. They may have beaten New Zealand soundly, but with that sound beating, they shouldn't have run it so fine against time.

Until Cook grasps that setting a target isn't just about batting the opponent out of contention then declaring, nothing will change. Until he understands that sometimes a carrot must be dangled, sometimes losing may have to be risked to ensure there is enough time to win, England won't progress.

If England aren't progressing, at their current rate New Zealand may soon overtake them. As of the end of England's last Test, New Zealand were eight points behind, and that gap will close with this win over the West Indies. Brendon McCullum hasn't accumulated as many runs as Alastair Cook, but he has accumulated plaudits for his captaincy.

McCullum is a livewire in the field. Cook vegetates at first slip. McCullum makes changes often and decisively. Cook lets the game drift. McCullum has no truck with convention unless it wins him games. Cook at his most inventive is a leg-slip or a short cover.

Contrary to what I wrote earlier, I'm not sure that McCullum is a brilliant strategist a la Richie Benaud or Mike Brearley, but he is inventive and ever-changing. He reminds me of a different Essex player and England captain: Nasser Hussain.

That was a man who was brave. That was a man who led from the front. Perhaps Cook could find a mentor?