BLACKCAPS In Australia - The Warm Up
One of the most eagerly anticipated Test series of my lifetime has crept up on us as all eyes are fixed on the Rugby World Cup. We are almost there, within no time we will be watching Kane Williamson chillin' at the crease as Mitchell Johnson steams in - Mitchell Johnson who just took 5/39 off 9 overs in his return to cricket after the Ashes for Western Australia in the Matador Cup.
Coach Mike Hesson said that the BLACKCAPS have brought in "big, tall, left-arm bowlers" to bowl in the nets to emulate Mitchell Starc, but with Johnson firing up as well, I think the realities of this Australian bowling attack are starting to hit home for me.
Our BLACKCAPS players enjoyed success in the opening round of the Plunket Shield with Tim Southee, Doug Bracewell and Trent Boult taking 5-fors, Jimmy Neesham and Luke Ronchi hitting centuries and the likes of Kane Williamson, BJ Watling, Hamish Rutherford and Martin Guptill all scored a few runs. This is however reflected by the Australians with three of the top five run-scorers in the Matador Cup coming from the Australian squad: Shaun Marsh (1st - 390 runs), Steve Smith (2nd - 251 runs) and Cameron Bancroft (4th - 335 runs). Mitchell Starc leads all wicket-takers with 23, 10 more wickets than Test hopefull James Pattinson who is in 2nd spot with 13 wickets.
It's hard to celebrate the form of the BLACKCAPS when the Australians are doing the same thing (both squads should dominate domestic cricket);maybe we're just not used to having the majority of the squad head to Australia with runs and wickets behind them?
There's steps to the build up for the first Test in Brisbane, which serves to raise the excitement levels as well as preparing or warming the players up for that first Test. We've pretty much run through the domestic cricket and this weekend we get two tour matches this weekend: a one-day fixture against a Prime Minister's XI in Canberra where the pink ball will be used and then a two-day fixture against a Cricket Australia XI also in Canberra.
Tim Southee will skipper the kiwis against the Prime Minister's XI, which is nice and all but there's not much else to this. Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson (and BJ Watling) won't play tomorrow's game which opens the door for Captain Southee, but don't expect Southee to be leap-frogging Williamson as the next BLACKCAPS captain.
I expect to see a full-strength BLACKCAPS team rolled out against the Cricket Australia XI on Saturday and Sunday, although how involved they will be is the question. Tour games like this usually see coaches and captains (McCullum, not Southee) decide who needs to bat and bowl etc which dictates how the game is played.
Both Australian teams that the BLACKCAPS will face this weekend include Test squad players (and hopefuls). The PM's XI includes Peter Siddle, Usman Khawaja, Joe Burns, Cameron Bancroft and Adam Voges while the CA XI has Siddle, Khawaja, Burns, Bancroft, Voges, Shaun Marsh and Mitchell Marsh.
Khawaja, Burns and Shaun Marsh will be hunting for runs as they try to seal a Test spot in the batting line-up with Bancroft my pick to open with David Warner. Siddle will also be interesting to watch as he is behind Starc, Johnson and Josh Hazlewood in the pecking order and will need to take wickets to knock on the door of selection for the first Test.
We obviously want to see runs and wickets from the BLACKCAPS players this weekend, it's that simple. Tom Latham was the only notable batsman not to score any sort of runs in the Plunket Shield so he'll obviously be eager spend time in the middle and the lurking presence of Hamish Rutherford will make things interesting. I much prefer Latham opening over Rutherford and I want to see the Latham/Guptill combo persevered with for as long as possible, but Rutherford's making a strong case for inclusion which means Latham must step up.
Southee, Boult and Mark Craig are locked in as bowlers which sets up a pretty interesting battle between Bracewell and Matt Henry for the third-seamer position. I imagine that they will get equal opportunity to impress this weekend with Bracewell able to extract any swing and seam movement off the pitch that's available while Henry has emerged as a solid third-seamer who attacks the stumps and delivers a heavy ball. I love the movement that Bracewell offers so I'm leaning towards him at the moment yet there is an opportunity for Henry to fight off Bracewell's challenge.
It's Labour Weekend so you will probably be heading off to a beach some where or doing something far cooler than watching a cricket scoreboard, fair enough. This weekend will be a very interesting one though for the BLACKCAPS as there are a few spots up for grabs in this Test team and they'll be facing a fair amount of Australian Test players who are also competing for Test selection.