Stats From the Blackcaps 2017-18 Test Summer
BATTING STATTIES
The Test summer began a very long time ago with a couple routine wins against the West Indies, took a long break so that fellas could give a white ball a good whack, then resumed with an instant classic series victory against England. Obviously not enough lovely cricket for our likings but that’s an argument for another day. Also obviously the Blackcaps are very dominant in their own conditions, as is the case with most teams in modern Test cricket, but same deal.
Anyway, of all the jokers in all this team to top the batting runs aggregate… it was Colin de Grandhomme! More runs than Kane, more than Ross… more than anyone. Typically there were 36 fours and 9 sixes in those 331 runs, both more than anyone else hit (nobody else hit more than 3 sixes). With a 72.74 strike-rate, he was top of the charts with the exception of Tim Southee, plus he passed fifty in three of his six innings, also a team best.
Say what you want about some of his dismissals but he batted at least 31 balls in all six knocks, never scoring less than 22. His scores went like this: 105, 58, 22, 29, 72 & 45, the first three vs WI and the last three vs ENG. Ish Sodhi and Neil Wagner were the heroes on day five in Christchurch but they wouldn’t have gotten there without CDG’s contributions. And lest we ignore that century against the Windies. He brought up the ton in just 71 deliveries, the ninth fastest Test ton in cricket history by balls faced and the second quickest ever by a New Zealander. No stunner that Brendon McCullum leads the way there with numero uno.
Both Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor scored centuries this summer. Rossco brought up #17 for him with 107no against the West Indies in Hamilton, having been dismissed for 93 in the first Test, but only scored 35 total runs in three innings against England. Still averaged fifty for the summer though, which edges that career mark up to 47.22. Plus along the way he passed 6000 Test runs. As for Prince Kane, he had a few good starts and was able to go on with one for 102 at Eden Park with the pink ball for that iconic #18, beating Martin Crowe’s mark of tons. Polished off the season with a golden duck against England, but. That one ruined the average a tad.
Henry Nicholls batted six times and was dismissed for 15 or fewer on four occasions. That’s not good. He also scored a 67 against WI and a superb 145no, the highest score of the summer for a Blackcap, against ENG. That’s very good. Such is the conundrum with old Hank. The same could be said for Tom Latham as it took until the final innings of the season before he passed fifty. Granted he also kept getting decent starts: 37, 22, 22, 26, 0 & 83. Only one cheapo in there. Plus it’s always a positive when an opening batsman faces the most deliveries across a season.
Less can be said for Jeet Raval, unfortunately. Having begun with 42 and 84 against the Windies, he could only score another 29 runs in four innings, logging three of his four lowest scores in Test cricket in the process. Put into context, in his first 14 Test innings for the Blackcaps (all at home because NZ’s last 11 Tests have been in Aotearoa) Raval only once got out in single figures… then did it three times in a row chased with a 17 in his final dig. It was a tough series for him against England but the career average is still up at 38.11 so he’ll probably be there in October or whenever the Caps next play a Test match… but his position’s under some pressure now.
Can’t fault the exploits of Tom Blundell and his debut Test century. 107* against the West Indies gives him an average of 68.00 through two matches… however with BJ Watling’s return and the buckets of runs being scored by blokes like Tim Seifert at domestic level he’s got a difficult task getting back in that team again. Gotta rate that depth.
Speaking of Watters, he didn’t ton up but he only scored a single run less than Blundell against a tougher opposition in an equal number of bats. And he deserved a hundred for his 85 in the first innings at Christchurch, batting for five hours across a couple fine partnerships with CDG and Southee to salvage things from 36/5 and help set a first innings total of 278, massive in getting that draw which secured the series win.
Todd Astle only batted once and scored 18, Mitch Santner had a couple stabs at it for 67 runs across three innings. Nothing much there. Tim Southee swung the bat well for that 50 in Chch – his fourth Test fifty and the first since November 2014. Let’s not sleep on the 0 not out off zero deliveries right at the end either. An innings of absolutely no importance thanks to the marvels of Neil Wagner and Ish Sodhi before him.
There were many contributions in getting the Blackcaps to where they were able to save that last match. Latham, Watling and de Grandhomme all did big things. Yet it was Sodhi and Wagner who batted for 31.2 overs and took it all the way to the end. Sodhi scored a brilliant and unbeaten 56 facing 168 deliveries and sticking out there for exactly 200 minutes. Huge from a guy who’s been criticised (kinda unfairly) for his batting before. Todd Astle’s a legit batsman with a couple centuries at first class level, but to be fair to Sodhi this was his third Test fifty. He can wield the willow too. Still, that was his longest Test knock by a distance.
As for Wagner, he only scored 7, which did his average no favours, but he did so from 103 balls. He’d faced a combined 94 in five Test innings this season before that. This wasn’t the first time he’s done this flat bat thing. His second Test innings away in Antigua he scored 13 from 103 deliveries as a nightwatchman trying to protect Kane Williamson… who came in the next morning and got a duck anyway. Weird looking scorecard, that one. And against England in 2013 over in Leeds he scored 0* from 37 balls in a day five defeat. Or his 5* (43) away in India under similar circumstances.
All this and we haven’t even gotten to the chap with the best batting average of the lot of them… drum roll… TRENT BOULT! 71 runs in four innings with three not outs. Trent Alexander has a career batting average of 16.02, helped significantly by those chirpy unbeaten knocks at the end of innings – he averages a not out every two innings. You know what they say, always valuable runs.
BOWLING STATTIES
Mate but how good is Trent Boult? For real. 25 wickets at 20.92 across four games, he was the star of the Test summer. Obviously he was at his very best when he tore through the English batting lineup on the first day of the pink ball match, helping shred them for 58 all out and taking a career best 6/32 along the way. But this wasn’t one of those one-hit KO summers, no way. Boulty chipped in with multiple wickets in all eight innings, here’s the proof…
You can’t ask for more than that from your opening bowler. Absolute legend and keeping up the home form he’s displayed for a few summers now (we didn’t play an away Test in 2017, so yeah). Going back the last two years he’s taken 47 wickets at 21.70 across eight Tests.
How about his mate Timmy then? Fair question, when we did the ODI summer roundup the stats were damning for Southee, multiple years of dead average numbers for a dude who’s basically a lock in that XI yet perhaps doesn’t deserve to be any longer. But his Test stuff’s been top notch.
Southee was also a large part of that magnificent 58 all out and he didn’t let up there. Second best average for a seamer with the third most overs bowled and third most wickets (and in one fewer match). Only played one Test against the West Indies but still took two wickets in each innings and also had a 6/62 in Christchurch against England. Boult has 47 @ 21.70 across the last eight Tests while Southee has 43 @ 23.37 in the same stretch of time. Not all that much worse. Get that red ball in his hand (or a pink one) and it’s the Tim Southee that his reputation suggests. One hell of an opening bowling partnership there.
And then to have the utter luxury… nay, the PRIVILEGE of Neil Wagner coming in to thump that old ball into the deck over and over and over again. It was a batting effort that made for Wagnut’s best contribution of the summer yet he was never not picking up crucial wickets. Think of a few massive ones that he took at Eden Park, for example. He only took five wickets against England, not bowling in the first innings in Auckland vs ENG and getting a rare 0-for in the first innings at Chch a week later (which means they were all tough second innings scalps), but don’t forget that the summer of Test cricket began with Wagner annihilating the West Indies with 7/39 as they were dropped for 134. Think about that a second too… West Indies first day of the series and they’re bowled out for 134, England’s first day of the series and they’re all out for 59. Almost like they weren’t given enough preparation, aye?
That’s the bulk of the wickets right there. 60 of the 80 wickets to fall all going to the same three seamers. 75% of the buggers. Plus Colin de Grandhomme took eight at a respectable enough (for a fourth/fifth option) 36.37, so that’s more seam magic there. CDG is nobody’s idea of a strike bowler as you can see from the awful 83.2 deliveries between wickets over these four Tests but he also had the best RPO of any seam bowler for NZ and rolled through 26 maidens in 111 overs. Curiously the only time his run rate went above 3.50 in an innings was the final one and he took 4/94. See, kids, keep it on a tidy line and length and let the batsmen make the mistakes.
Chuck it up for Matt Henry too. Only got the one game but at least chimed in with three wickets. Pretty hard to judge a man on one Test though… which is the same issue with Ish Sodhi and Todd Astle. The spinners split the ODI summer and then split the Test series against England. Astle didn’t get a bowl in the first innings of his Test, only Southee and Boult did, and then had to wait until day five before his chance finally arrived. And he did nicely, taking 3/39 including the final wicket in a rare Test victory against England. Gotta love some of that. Sodhi only bowled 16 overs in his Test and wasn’t at his best… though he made his mark in a different manner. What a bloody innings that was!
Mitch Santner played two Tests against the Windies and took three wickets at 12.66, not really getting to do much. Kane Williamson only bowled two overs all up.
OTHER STUFF
You wanna know who took the most catches? Got some short odds on BJ Watling there, mate. BJ-Dubs took nine catches in his two games, while interestingly Tom Blundell only made two in his two. As for outfielders, what do you reckon? Ross Taylor? Kane Williamson? Tom Latham? Nope. It was Trent Boult and Hank Nicholls with six each.
Also if average differential is how you wanna judge your all-rounders then De Grandhomme’s going smoothly with an 18.79 difference between his batting and bowling marks. Mitch Santner’s only at 9.66… but the real deal comes with the number eleven. Trent Boult with a 50.08 average differential. Get him up the order!
The opening pair, the only two to bat together in every innings of the summer, had a best partnership of 65 and averaged 31.83. There were three hundy partnerships: 127 between Nicholls and Taylor (Test 1 vs WIN), 142 between de Grandhomme and Watling (Test 2 vs ENG) & 148 between de Grandhomme and Blundell (Test 1 vs WIN). Yeah so two came in the same innings.
Finally, these are the competed innings totals for the Blackcaps:
- 520/9d vs WIN at Wellington
- 373 vs WIN at Hamilton
- 291/9d vs WIN at Hamilton
- 427/8d vs ENG at Auckland
- 278 vs ENG at Christchurch
- 256/8 vs ENG at Christchurch
While the Windies were done for 134 & 319 in the first and 221 & 203 in the second and England managed 58 & 320 in the first and 307 & 352/9d in the second. Good numbers, those.
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