Do the Blackcaps Know Their Best XI Going Into the Champions Trophy?
After a glimpse at the squad that they picked, it feels like a fair question to ask. It’s one that’s been raised and alluded to in Nichey articles and podcasts for quite a while now. There are win-now approaches and there are build-for-the-future approaches and then there’s the Lesson Blackcaps (Lesson = Larsen + Hesson), where players are dropped without explanation, others are recalled for tenuous reasons and nobody seems to really know where they stand outside a few main heroes.
You don’t have to know your best XI in order to be successful, but it does help. Especially if you want to create a competitive culture for places. Like, if you understand that you’re behind somebody else in the depth charts then you’re gonna work your arse off to prove you can perform better. You get a chance and you already know you’d better take this one or else the next one won’t be so close.
We can guess what the Blackcaps XI will look like at the Champions Trophy but that’s more based on patterns of selections (weird, illogical patterns) than it is about clarity for the players. If Colin de Grandhomme gets a start, he probably still won’t consider himself the number one bowling all-rounder in New Zealand because, damn, why isn’t he starting every game if that’s the case?
Here’s the squad that they picked:
WILLIAMSON, ANDERSON, BOULT, BROOM, DE GRANDHOMME, GUPTILL, LATHAM, MCCLENEGHAN, MILNE, NEESHAM, PATEL, RONCHI, SANTNER, SOUTHEE, TAYLOR
It’s a, umm… curious squad. To say the least. Even more so when you consider the backup team that they picked for the warm-up games against Ireland and Bangladesh and the various XIs that they picked throughout the summer of One Day International cricket.
The Blackcaps have played 13 ODIs since returning from the tour of India (which is the cut-off point here since those conditions are vastly different from most other places – such as England where the Champs Trophy is being held – and therefore comes with unique selection requirements). Kane Williamson has captained each and every one of those matches and he’s batted exclusively at number three. Sweet as, there’s the first figure in the totem.
But it gets complicated after that point. The only other player to have played all 13 games is Mitchell Santner. Switched between batting at seven and eight and getting in plenty of overs as a middle-order spinner. Santner’s a lock in this team based on that history… although the idea that he can fit in as an all-rounder is crazy when he’s never even scored an ODI half-century. See, it’s one thing to pick a dude consistently and it’s something else to ask them to perform a role they’ve never lived up to in the past.
Martin Guptill’s a guarantee as well. He missed four ODIs amidst the Aussie and South African home series but that was down to injury. Similarly Ross Taylor didn’t travel to Australia nor did he play against Bangladesh. But since returning to fitness he’s played seven straight ODIs and scored a couple of tons in the process. With 11 games out of 13, Tom Latham seemingly completes a set top four… but let’s come back to that in a sec.
On the pace bowling side, we’ve got Tim Southee playing the last 12 ODIs having missed the first one in Aussie through injury and we’ve also got Trent Boult doing good things in 12 of the last 13 games too. They’re the two most experienced swing bowlers we have and easily the two top international wicket takers available and they’re playing in any must-win one-day game. That gives half a team their job security for the tournament but it’s all murky beyond that.
Luke Ronchi’s nickname is ‘Rock’ according to his cricinfo page. Probably because he sinks like one whenever he bats. It’s mean to the bloke to keep picking on his record but, damn, as long as they keep picking him we’re entitled to keep asking why. You wanna know how bad it is then revisit this piece from the last kiwi summer diving deep into the wicket-keeper batsman drama in NZ.
After Ronchi Kong (his real, TNC-endorsed nickname) scored a combined 7 runs in three ODI innings in India, he was dropped for BJ Watling to close that series. Watling was there because it was a tour to India and, you know, he was there. Kept in the Tests and stuck around. He hadn’t played an ODI since 2013 but he was picked again in the Hadlee-Chappells in Australia… where he failed substantively. Like many batsmen have in Australia. Nonetheless, that was his opportunity gone and Ronchi came back in for Bangladesh. Then they decided to roll with Tom Latham as a WK/Bat and his form disappeared overnight. He kept wicket well, but in five games of piss-poor batsmanship (luck + form, etc.) he was dropped for the last two against South Africa and back came Ronchi.
Now Ronchi and Latham are the two WKs picked for the Champs Trophy. Latham had been a regular, playing 16 ODIs in a row before getting dropped. So what does that mean now, is he still our ODI opener? Presumably this was a wake-up call dropping and he’ll be back in there with Guppy getting innings off to a quick start; he held his Test place after all. Also the opener who replaced him in the squad was Dean Brownlie, who also played four games in place of Guptill. That’s the last six games that Brownlie has played in - with 63 in his first game in three years, against Australia, but an average of only 26.33 overall. Not enough to force the selectors hands although it’s still strange that he was left out not only of Champs Trophy team but the Irish warm-up squad as well. That’s strange as hell, in fact.
Meanwhile Luke Ronchi and Jeetan Patel are in the squad, and likely to play, despite only featuring in the last two consecutive games. Ronchi’s been dropped twice this summer (and had a spell out injured) yet the only replacement they seem confident in came off like a spontaneous trial as if they’d never even considered this stuff. Does Ronchi go into this tour feeling confident in his place or feeling like he’s the fall-back option because the selectors didn’t plan far enough ahead to replace him?
Patel played the last two ODIs against South Africa with some success and stayed on for the Tests. He first came back into the reckoning in India where he was called up mid-tour to replace Mark Craig (remember him?) and he ended up playing ahead of original pick Ish Sodhi as the second spinner. That juggling act has continued. Some hot T20 form got Sodhi back in the ODI squad against South Africa, after not playing a One Dayer for NZ since India, but he only played the first two games and didn’t make the CT squad.
Then there’s Neil Broom, who did great against Bangladesh, good against Australia and bad against South Africa. He replaced Ross Taylor in the XI as a veteran hand who could carry some weight in the top order and did enough to play in eight straight games. Then he got dropped in the reshuffle so that Ronchi could come back in (Ronchi batting at five the last two games). Both Broom and Ronchi are in the CT team. One of them will probably bat at five… unless they push an all-rounder up there. Jimmy Neesham batted twice at four in Oz then got dropped for Hank Nicholls (not in the CT). He came back in at five against Bangladesh and was pushed to seven when Australia dropped by. Then played all five games against South Africa at six.
Neesham only missed one ODI game this summer but with Corey Anderson back in the team, there’s a decision to be made there. It already felt like they didn’t know where to play Ol’ Jimbo… so why pick him if you don’t have a role for him? Neesham’s good enough but tell him he’s batting six and bowling five overs and let him do his best with that rather than moving the goalposts all the time on a guy still trying to prove he belongs at this level.
At least they gave Colin Munro a chance to do something with eight games in a row before getting flicked from the XI for South Africa. He had his chance and he dropped it, so they moved on… although he remains in the Ireland tour squad. Colin de Grandhomme played all five games against South Africa and all three in Australia, bookending his 50-over summer after not playing against Bangladesh or Aussie (at home) in between.
And this is where it gets truly frustrating. Three guys in this Champions Trophy squad have not played a single game this summer for the Blackcaps. At least Anderson has played some T20 stuff but he, Mitchell McCleneghan and Adam Milne have been nowhere else thanks to long injury layoffs. Anderson, who apparently has the green light to bowl full spells again, is competing for an all-rounder spot (and God knows that Lesson loves an all-rounder). He’s at least played enough cricket to prove some fitness but you can’t say he’s been picked on anything other than reputation.
McCleneghan hasn’t played an ODI since January 2016, Adam Milne hasn’t played an ODI since February 2016. Both well over a year out of the team. In that time the third/fourth seamer role has been balanced between Matt Henry and, more recently, Lockie Ferguson. Sometimes they pick Jeetal Patel as an extra spinner. Ferguson played in seven ODIs this summer while Henry played in three. Neither are in this squad. Both of them deserved more lovin’ over the last few months but were in and out instead and maybe that was just so Lesson could count down the days until McClenny and Milno were back. Ferguson didn’t do enough, averaging 50.87 in those seven games for his 8 wickets but Adam Milne’s career average is 40.61 so yeah.
It’s Milne > Ferguson in the fast bowler stakes and McCleneghan > Henry in the alternative seamer ranks. Both cases are fine in isolation (although Henry’s 58 career wickets at 25.10 is pretty underrated) but together and with Anderson we’ve got three guys immediately shuffled in from injury after playing a couple unglamorous Plunket Shield games and a handful of IPL matches. No one-day cricket in that, you’ll notice. Paleo Mac’s getting big wickets in the IPL but Milne’s only played a couple games there.
There’s a very realistic chance that Anderson bats at five, given Lesson’s chatter about ‘high-scoring tournaments’ and all that (and also Broom slipping down the reps), with Neesham and Ronchi behind him. Maybe Latham keeps and we squeeze in CDG or another bowler instead of Ronchi. Santner in at eight and then Southee and Boult with Milne/McC/Jeetz at nine to complete it. If that’s the case then we’ve just gone through 13 ODIs this summer in the lead up to a major tournament where we’ll feature a team that looks nothing like any of the ones they’ve named previous - we’ve shuffled around a bunch of all-rounders and third bowling options only to ditch the lot of them for guys that haven’t played an ODI for a year.
The lack of consistency here is crazy and if a few T20s in India are enough to justify a selection then what about Ish Sodhi who dominated in the Big Bash – an arguably stronger T20 competition than the IPL? If Lesson’s shoehorned three injury prone blokes back in the team for a major tournament then they really haven’t prepared a damn thing for this tournament.
Instead we’ve watched a Blackcaps team with no foresight or future planning, constantly attacking the next problem with squad rotation rather than picking teams for a purpose. Our wicket keepers are struggling? Give Latham the gloves. He sucks too now? Drop him and bring back Ronchi. Neesham’s bowling’s been trash? Umm, chuck Anderson back in there, he’ll be fine. And don’t expect anything from that pre-tourney tour squad either because they had to name a Champions Trophy squad a month out and of the 15 blokes in the Ireland side, only Latham, Broom, Neesham, Patel, Ronchi, Santner and Taylor are going over to England too. Last series before the Trophy but we gotta let our main dudes finish up at the IPL first, no prep there.
Lesson coulda built more depth by trusting a few hand-picked young guns over the summer. But Tom Blundell couldn’t get a game. Ish Sodhi and Lockie Ferguson were swapped in and out on a whim. George Worker was nowhere to be seen. Matt Henry was dropped for a guy with a similarly strong record but no recent international cricket, same with Lockie Ferguson. Veteran reliability makes Colin de Grandhomme the first all-rounder off the bench but Dean Brownlie, who appeared to be the batting equivalent, can’t even make the backup squad. There’s a fire in this house but let’s not call the fire brigade, nah let’s just keep fanning at the smoke until it’s cleared.
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