BLACKCAPS Hosting Sri Lanka - Test Series Debrief
TIMMMAAAAAY
Before we get into some thoughts on the Test series between New Zealand and Sri Lanka, a reasonably new trend has emerged and it pisses me off. I admire that people across Aotearoa are chasing the perfect Test and the perfect Test wicket where guys get runs, wickets fall and everything is A-1, primo, super duper, el perfecto.
Admirable, yeah sure, it's also kinda dumb though. A spinning track in India is frowned upon because if offers too much for the spin bowlers, green-seamers are no good because it's too hard for the batsmen and flat decks are the devil. This is Test cricket folks, each Test is different as each ground in each country is different, hence it's my favourite sporting competition. Some days life as a batsman is going to be hard, sometimes it's going to be easy and apply that to the bowlers as well.
Don't get me started on people who talk in a negative tone when discussing 'doctored' pitches. Ugh.
Both Tests in this series offered me great joy as they put the kiwi cricketing culture in the spotlight. Some days, across Aotearoa you'll have cricket being played in chilly/freezing conditions and this is what we got in Dunedin. A seaming deck in the biggest city south of Christchurch screams out 'we're kiwis!' and as the camera panned around the crowd, zooming in on people wrapped in sleeping bags, beanies on, only there because of their love for Test cricket.
Head north, fast-forward a few days and we're in Hamilton. It rained a bit in H-Town but my lasting memory from this Test was the complete opposite to Dunedin as punters baked in sunshine, singlets on, families with beach umbrellas/tents, youngsters downing as much booze as they could and a ruckus noise of songs/ramblings filling the air.
Cricketing intricacies aside, these two Tests against Sri Lanka showcased the kiwi cricketing culture live in full effect. Sure the cold isn't ideal, apparently green-seamers aren't ideal and apparently Tests that finish within five days aren't ideal, but everything about this Test series filled me with cricketing joy.
The results also filled me with joy, so the combination of pride in the kiwi cricketing culture and pride in the BLACKCAPS themselves leaves me in a merry mood ahead of Christmas.
Positives from this series are led by our captain-in-waiting and overall cricketing deity Kane Williamson, who continues to leave us as fans speechless ... or just lacking superlatives to describe him. Williamson followed two classy knocks in Dunedin up with a match-winning century in the second innings in Hamilton, with the century also seeing him break a few records so you can't help but feel like our stars are aligning - we've had to wait so long for a world-conquering batsmen and our time has come.
I could pick at Williamson's brilliance, instead I've settled on the match-winning aspect of his century to sum up Williamson. Out in the first innings to one of many poor shots from the kiwi batsmen, Williamson bounced back and produced the goods when no one else really wanted to. I won't sugarcoat it as the kiwi batsmen were reasonably bad in Hamilton, yet Williamson wasn't having none of that, kudos to you Kane.
Besides Williamson it was a weird series for our batsmen. Tom Latham and Martin Guptill both hit centuries (Guppy hit a 50 as well) to ensure that they will be our openers for the next year or so and McCullum went boom-town a few times, which worked once. Otherwise no one was really good enough to handle Sri Lanka's bowlers who did an alright job in favourable conditions. It was a bit of a nothing series for the batsmen in that regard as Williamson carried the batting line-up.
In fairness this series saw the bowlers flourish, so it's no wonder that our best batsmen by a country mile enjoyed the most success. I love our bowling attack or The Stable and my main thought for the bowlers was how well the four-pronged pace attack worked. A lot has been said on our pages about the balance in our bowling group and how they worked together far better against Sri Lanka than they did in Australia so I won't go on about that, it's just a great asset to have in kiwi conditions.
Tim Southee finished with 13 wickets, leading all bowlers. Neil Wagner was well rewarded with nine wickets, Trent Boult wasn't at his best and still picked up six wickets while Doug Bracewell had five. 33/40 wickets to The Stable, chur.
The four-pronged pace attack was able to be rolled out because of Mitchell Santner's all-round presence. Santner finished with four wickets and scored 54 runs, which isn't great but not much more was needed (Ross Taylor had 58 runs so not bad Santner) and you'd have to be blind not to see the ability in Santner. His bat flows in a smooth arc and his left-arm gets dip, turn and bounce which got me thinking about our all-rounder situation.
Santner gives the BLACKCAPS the ability to play four pace bowlers which is ideal in my mind so Corey Anderson and Jimmy Neesham now need to force their way into the team. This isn't a case of Santner keeping their spot warm, the balance that Santner offers now has him has our no.1 all-rounder in my mind.
What about Bracewell? Dougy looked good with the bat, scoring 82 runs thanks to a 47 and has shown the ability to be a very capable no.8 batsman. It may get to the point where Bracewell finds himself ahead of Anderson and Neesham with a specialist batsman preferred over Anderson or Neesham.
Shout out to Sri Lanka for the competition, the fire and the signs of class. From a kiwi perspective it's simply a case of job done though, even if there were many cracks painted over by quality bowling and a certain Mr Williamson, job done.