Nah, This Ain’t A Great Blackcaps Team Until They Win An Away Series
It’s lovely to see the Blackcaps winning these days. There were some tough times in there, we’ve had to do the hard yards to get here. Third innings collapses, pathetic death bowling, complete battlers filling out the team, Shane Bond’s injured back… times were tough.
But here we are now in early 2018, the Blackcaps sweeping away every team that’s stood before them. Beat the West Indies in both Tests. Aced them 3-0 in the ODIs and 2-0 in the T20s (with one washout). Pakistan were dispatched 5-0 in the ODI series. These T20s ain’t going too bad either. All of a sudden they’re talking about the Best Blackcaps Team in History…
Wait… how did we go at the Champions Trophy last year? Wasn’t that the tournament that we’d been preparing for the entire previous twelve months or whatever? That’s right, and we played a warm-up series that only had like a third of the squad in it and then lost to Bangladesh in a must-win game that got us eliminated. Then they didn’t play for another four and a half months and went to India, where the Blackcaps lost the ODI series 2-1 and lost the T20 series 2-1. Didn’t play Tests, of course.
Huh, so as good as they’ve been this summer, we’re obviously dealing with some short term memory syndrome. And they’ve been good, woah, mate have they been good. Colin Munro’s been belting runs all over, Ross Taylor’s laying down fifties with ease, Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson have had their moments of glory. Trent Boult is getting wickets for fun, Ish Sodhi is the world’s top ranked international T20 bowler now (and Munro the #1 bat), Mitch Santner’s learned a carom ball. Even fringe guys like Todd Astle, Seth Rance, Anaru Kitchen and Glenn Phillips have had some success.
See that’s the thing: these Blackcaps are definitely very good. They’ve improved blatantly since the Champions Trophy, the team that lost to Bangladesh read: Guptill, Ronchi, Williamson, Taylor, Broom, Neesham, Anderson, Santner, Milne, Southee and Boult. Well, Munro appears to have gotten a line on the pinch-hitting opening spot that Luke Ronchi only hinted at. Henry Nicholls has done a lot more than Neil Broom did (Broom who scored runs in the warm ups and in NZ but then averaged only 20.33 at a strike rate of 76.25 at that crucial number five spot in the CT and whose career ODI average is 14.48 when not playing against BAN/IRE). Jimmy Neesham’s disappeared while Tom Latham’s taken over as a wicket-keeping middle-order bat and Lockie Ferguson’s doing as much as Adam Milne in a relative straight swap. And an injured Corey Anderson isn’t use for anyone, while Colin de Grandhomme literally won a game with his bat the other day and can chip in with the odd partnership-breaking ball as well.
Sweet, so the Blackcaps are playing much better cricket. There’s an argument that they could’ve done this at the Champions Trophy too if selections had been a little less stupid – it’s not like CDG or Munro went anywhere – but they were too busy trying to recreate the 2015 World Cup team without any imagination or creativity. Ronchi’s a wicket keeper who can slug it, give him a Puma bat and tell him he’s Brendon McCullum. Neesham’s a funny bugger like Grant Elliott, Santner’s a left arm orthodox who can bat a bit like Dan Vettori, Corey Anderson resembles that Corey Anderson guy, Adam Milne bowls almost as fast as that other Adam Milne guy… done.
Now they’ve started allowing the players they have to play to their own strengths, recreating the pinch-hitting opener in Colin Munro’s shape because that’s how Colin Munro bats. Getting back to the spirit of the McCullum captaincy rather than the literal image of it. You can’t fake McCullum or Vettori, after all. Gotta let players thrive in their own skins. Next step is to let Ish Sodhi, Mark Chapman, Glenn Phillips, Tom Bruce and those types get the chances that Munro, CDG, Fergo, etc. have been getting and doing well with. All goods, we can wait.
Test matches are the pinnacle and T20Is are a little silly. Case and point, the Australian T20 side that’s coming here for the Tri-Series only has one player in common (Lil Davie Warner) with the Test squad that’s touring South Africa in March. One player. Which is why this exploration is gonna focus on the Blackcaps’ ODI form. The Blackcaps are a decent Test team these days but A) we don’t play enough Tests for the stats to hold up so well and B) nobody really thinks this Test team is all-time great. You have to win away from home for that to be the case and the Blackcaps’ away record in Tests since the end of the 2015 World Cup (because that seems to mark a new era for this team and it’ll keep things consistent with the ODI stats that are gonna come flying at ya in a second). It’s basically the last two years, since nobody was playing Tests during the World Cup.
In that time, New Zealand has won eight of their 13 home Tests, with three defeats and two draws. Two of those defeats were against Australia, the other against South Africa. They’re 8-0-0 against Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and West Indies. Four teams that always struggle here.
Away from Aotearoa? Three wins from 12, with seven defeats and two draws. There’s a win against England and two against Zimbabwe, which barely counts. Might as well say one win from ten. May 2015 against England at Leeds. Without another away Test in the immediate future it’ll soon far surpass three full years without an away Test win against a country other than Zimbabwe.
That’s cricket though. Everybody seems to be good at home and suck away. Only India has a winning away record over that time and, suspiciously, they’ve played fewer away Tests than every major team aside from Bangladesh and New Zealand while playing more home Tests in the same period than anyone but England.
TEST CRICKET HOME/AWAY SPLITS SINCE APRIL 2015
Every team other than the bottom three have won more home Tests than they’ve lost, every team other than India has lost more away Tests than won. Test cricket is like that, the best team tends to win after five days. (Although here’s the caveat on India’s away form: they’ve played six Tests in Sri Lanka and four in West Indies in that time. One in Bangladesh. Now they’re in South Africa and they’re losing and Virat Kohli’s being a dick about it). One-Dayers are that bit more competitive, just look at England getting it done in the ODIs against Australia after being annihilated in the Tests. So how do the Blackcaps shape up since that World Cup in ODIs, both home and away?
Pretty bloody good at home, as you’d expect. 22 wins at home and only five defeats. Lost one to Sri Lanka, three to South Africa and one to Australia. Series results as follows:
- 3-1 vs Sri Lanka (one N/R) – Dec/Jan 2015-16
- 2-0 vs Pakistan – Jan 2016
- 2-1 vs Australia – Feb 2016
- 3-0 vs Bangladesh – Dec/Jan 2016-17
- 2-0 vs Australia – Jan-Feb 2017
- 2-3 vs South Africa – Feb-Mar 2017
- 3-0 vs West Indies – Dec 2017
- 5-0 vs Pakistan – Jan 2018
Plus they won all their home games at the World Cup before that. And they won those 22 games out of 28 despite losing 20 of those coin tosses. It doesn’t even matter when Aotearoa plays in Aotearoa.
Outside of this country, on the other hand, it’s the same story as with the Tests. 11 wins and 17 defeats. They did well in the Tri-Series in Ireland before the Champs Trophy but that was against Ireland and Bangladesh – The Neil Broom Effect. Plus they beat Zimbabwe 2-1… but that means they lost a game to Zimbabwe (check out that bowling line-up though, yikes). Lost 3-2 in India, lost 2-1 in South Africa, lost 3-0 in Australia, lost 2-1 in India and, oh yeah, they lost two with a no-result in the Champions Trophy.
There are some competitive results in there, but the concerning thing is that they can’t keep it up in the decisive games. Other than in Zimbabwe, when they came from 1-0 down to win that series, for what that’s worth. Aside from that there were series deciders against England, South Africa and India x2 and probably gotta chuck the Bangladesh game at the CT in there too. Hey and that World Cup final wasn’t too sharp.
Okay so against England they were unlucky, DLS allowing Old Blighty to sneak in there by three wickets – although from 45/5 they shouldn’t ever have been able to. Johnny Bairstow scored 83no. In South Africa it was a matter of chasing 284 for victory and they were skittled for 221 in the final over, never even getting close. India in October 2016 they played pretty great to be tied 2-2 going into the last game… when they were bowled out for 79 chasing 270, a ridiculous innings that saw five players dismissed for 0.
Then there was that time they needed a win over Bangladesh to progress in the Champs Trophy and they had the Tigers 33/4 chasing 266 and Shakib Al Hasan and Mahmudullah put on a 224 run partnership, each tonning up, for the win. Then another unlucky one, as they let India put 337/6 on them with centuries to Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. But the Blackcaps stayed scrappy. They got fifties from Munro, Williamson and Latham as well as starts from Taylor and Nicholls but ultimately fell six runs short. Guts, lads. Guts.
Then again, even Australia have lost more than they’ve won in away ODIs over that span of time. Only England and India have winning away records – which makes the prospect of England touring these shores soon pretty enticing. South Africa were the equivalent tour last year and they beat the kiwis 3-2 in a quality ODI series. If they can do to England what they’re doing to Pakistan and West Indies right now, then maybe we can talk about all-time Blackcaps teams. Although it’d help if they could win some series away from home. Clearly that’s the mark of a great team, not just pummelling on wary travellers when, really, any old domestic joker can come in and get wickets/runs.
Because the telling thing isn’t that guys like Williamson, Boult and Guptill do so much better at home than they do away. Here’s what the superstars do at home vs away…
(all stats since 1 April 2015, as with everything else)
Kane Williamson
HOME: 984 Runs | 42.78 Ave | 80.52 SR | 115 HS
AWAY: 1307 Runs | 54.45 Ave | 88.79 SR | 118 HS
Martin Guptill
HOME: 1180 Runs | 69.41 Ave | 102.43 SR | 180no HS
AWAY: 944 Runs | 41.04 Ave | 89.47 SR | 116no HS
Ross Taylor
HOME: 726 Runs | 55.84 Ave | 83.16 SR | 107 HS
AWAY: 1103 Runs | 61.27 Ave | 84.71 SR | 119no HS
Trent Boult
HOME: 48 Wkts | 19.89 Ave | 5.19 RPO | 23.0 SR | 7/34 BBI
AWAY: 25 Wkts | 31.52 Ave | 5.48 RPO | 34.4 SR | 4/35 BBI
Tim Southee
HOME: 19 Wkts | 42.47 Ave | 5.39 RPO | 47.3 SR | 3/22 BBI
AWAY: 24 Wkts | 36.70 Ave | 5.89 RPO | 37.3 SR | 3/40 BBI
Those are the five dead sets in the ODI team, you can probably chuck Santner in there as well but we’ll get to him soon. Not a great look for Southee and Boult, who are not quite as dominant away – although consider the places NZ has toured lately before writing them off (India twice, that’ll do it). Guptill loves the home conditions but is still a quality batsman outside of Aotearoa. Williamson and Taylor get even better in the tougher conditions. Nope, the superstars don’t tell the story. The real tell is those fringe players get runs and wickets here and not there. For example…
Henry Nicholls
HOME: 440 Runs | 40.00 Ave | 88.00 SR | 83no HS
AWAY: 86 Runs | 28.66 Ave | 87.75 SR | 42 HS
Colin Munro
HOME: 351 Runs | 29.25 Ave | 130.00 SR | 87 HS
AWAY: 331 Runs | 27.58 Ave | 95.94 SR | 75 HS
Tom Latham
HOME: 391 Runs | 19.55 Ave | 83.19 SR | 137 HS
AWAY: 1059 Runs | 58.83 Ave | 85.81 SR | 110no HS
Mitchell Santner
HOME: 30 Wkts | 28.20 Ave | 4.71 RPO | 35.8 SR | 3/15 BBI
AWAY: 26 Wkts | 36.56 Ave | 5.01 RPO | 43.6 SR | 5/50 BBI
Matt Henry
HOME: 31 Wkts | 17.00 Ave | 5.08 RPO | 20.0 SR | 5/40 BBI
AWAY: 13 Wkts | 54.69 Ave | 6.50 RPO | 50.4 SR | 3/36 BBI
The two that emphasise that trend best are Hank Nicholls and Matt Henry. Tom Latham’s included there because he’s the strange case where it’s the exact opposite. He, for whatever reason, seems to suck batting in New Zealand while he scores runs elsewhere at a world class rate. He can sweep, so that got him good in India, but he got runs on the Champs Trophy tour as well. And Santer doesn’t seem to get many wickets in New Zealand but he’s much tougher to score off, while Colin Munro’s averages don’t change much – it’d be different if we’d separated his scores from this summer alone when his average jumps to 33.54 (nothing special but a notable leap). With him though, just look at that difference in strike-rate. There’s your evidence.
And, really, it’s those guys even lower on the totem that matter. Todd Astle has seven ODI wickets this home summer at an average of 21.42. That’s the form that’ll probably keep him in the team for a couple more series… but does anyone think he’ll be outperforming Ish Sodhi if they both played in India or in England or in Australia or in South Africa? There might be a few of you out there… the point is that we won’t know until we get to see it so this summer is not a conclusive representation of what Toddy Bear can do.
Lockie Ferguson is another guy. He took one wicket in 17 overs playing his first series in Australia but has been picking them up at 30s since. When he gets another chance to tour overseas it’ll be a curious one to see. Colin de Grandhomme’s in the same boat, he’s played most of his international cricket in New Zealand, so his 203 runs at *ahem* an average of 203.00 and 5 wickets at 33.40 in NZ look a fair bit different than his 78 runs at 19.50 and 4 wickets at 68.75 away… granted he might offer more now that he’s got a defined role in the team.
Those two aren’t alone. With only three away ODIs since the Champions Trophy nearly a year ago, the Blackcaps have seen guys like Luke Ronchi and Jeetan Patel retire while ushering in a new crop of middle order batsmen and bit-part all-rounders, hence this team that’s doing so well at the moment actually hasn’t been tested away from home at all – not when a trip to India tends to mean some unusual tactics. The two things that stuck from the India series were the ideas of Colin Munro as an opener and that Tom Latham can keep and bat five. Munro’s done fine. Latham… yeah, he was great there in India… and has been rats ever since – a top score of 37 against PAK & WI.
The good news is that the Blackcaps ODI team has a set First XI now. Guptill and Munro open, with Williamson, Taylor, Latham and Nicholls to follow. CGD/Second Spinner in next, then Santner. Chuck in Ferguson, Southee and Boult and there you go. Let’s just wait ‘til we see them win a few away series before we get carried away though. Hell, let’s see them beat England first of all.
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