Where oh where are we at with the Blackcaps?

Everything about our national men's cricket team is confusing, puzzling and just a bit silly. It wasn't supposed to be like this, not with Kaptain Kane leading the gang into battle but in 2016 we have seen the Blackcaps lose to Australia, South Africa and now India. Kaptain Kane is obviously a fantastic batsman and I don't doubt his leadership, yet I can't help but feel like this Blackcaps team immediately lost their identity when Brendon McCullum retired and even with B-Mac at the helm, the Blackcaps were touched up by Australia on home soil.

Or is it B-Mac's desire to go out and chase victories that has left the Blackcaps with a bit of a hangover? Across three Tests in India - especially in the third Test where the Blackcaps forgot how to defend - the kiwis didn't show much desire to grit their teeth and do their best to salvage a draw. 

Salvaging a draw is a bit difficult though when you can't defend your stumps and the number of bowled and lbw dismissals is horrible: 33 in the series against India. That's more than half of the 60 total dismissals and basically means that protecting the stumps with your bat isn't a skill that this Blackcaps have mastered just yet. What's even more sad/horrible/poo is that against South Africa in that second Test loss, 10/20 dismissals were bowled or lbw.

Again, that's half of 'em. Same theme, different conditions though. In South Africa it was the seam/swing of Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and the young gun Kagiso Rabada who ran riot attacking the stumps of the kiwi batsmen. With Steyn and Philander frothing to get back into Test cricket and Rabada the future leader of their attack, South Africa's seam attack was about as hostile as any in their own conditions.

Sound familiar? Sure it does because it's the same as facing Ravi Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja in India, except instead of seam, it's spin. 

The Blackcaps were always going to struggle in India and ahead of the first Test, I approached the preview with caution. Our spinners weren't going to be as good as theirs, our batsmen weren't going to be better than theirs in their conditions and it became fairly evident that even the Indian seam attack was better equipped to pose a threat in those conditions. The Blackcaps were heavy underdogs and if you were expecting wins, well that was just unrealistic.

Draws certainly weren't unrealistic and in any of these three Tests, a draw would have felt like a win. That's the beauty in Test cricket as a draw can be a glorious, especially when you've fought so hard to fight off opposition bowlers with Virat Kohli's passion oozing from his pores and a wild Indian crowd turning that Indore stadium into a cricket colleseum. Just imagine if a couple kiwi batsmen had held things down, scored 50-odd off 200 balls or something and earned a draw. 

But they couldn't, because scoring runs requires stroke-play and defending requires the ability to defend the threat posed to your stumps. 

I will once again bring up the issue of playing just one warm-up fixture in India, after returning to Aotearoa between the end of the South Africa series and heading to India. This needs to be repeated one more time because I've settled on a nice way to frame why this is so frustrating; are the Blackcaps doing everything they possibly can to get better as a Test team?

Us kiwis are a sensible bunch, so we understand that it's pretty damn hot over there and all that sort of stuff. We heard many times how tough the conditions were but the average kiwi who works a Mon-Fri job doesn't care about that as they'd give their left you-know-what to be in that position. These ... 'reasons' for why it's so tough quickly start to sound like excuses, especially when the Blackcaps clearly didn't do everything the possibly could in preparing for India. 

What was wrong with batsmen going straight from South Africa to India and facing all sorts of spin in that crazy humidity for two weeks straight? That's what you'd do if you were ticking every single box.

After spending much of the year following the NZ Warriors closely, there's a weird similarity in the selection of the team between Mike Hesson's work and Andrew McFadden's. McFadden had a tendency to throw consistency of selection out the window, bringing young players into the team only to throw them out the next week and the Blackcaps finished with two up-and-coming Test cricketers sitting on the sidelines after having their confidence and development disregarded.

Jeetan Patel's return to the Blackcaps filled us all with good vibes as he was coming in hot off yet another 50+ wicket County season, yet what did the Blackcaps gain from Patel's presence? Patel doesn't have much of future in the Blackcaps and I was left wondering what was gained in persisting with Patel, over Ish Sodhi. What was there to lose? The Blackcaps were already getting torched, so why not give the young spin-tandem of Sodhi and Mitchell Santner some time together? 

Henry Nicholls wasn't given much of a crack either. Again, the Blackcaps were already India's whippin' boys so what is there to gain from persisting with older players? Nicholls scored runs in South Africa and his development would have been aided by playing consistently in India. The question obviously is who would Nicholls come in for? Luke Ronchi is the main-man in that regard as he also doesn't have a long-term future in the Blackcaps, but Ronchi was one of few batsmen to enjoy some sort of success, so fair play. 

This is where things get weird and even more McFadden-ish as it doesn't appear like Hesson can make tough calls regarding senior players. Will Ross Taylor be dropped for Nicholls? No, it doesn't feel that way and I don't think we'll ever see Taylor asked to demand selection in domestic cricket by stacking up plenty of runs. This isn't restricted to Taylor and an 'untouchable' vibe doesn't breed success, competition and pressure to perform does. 

Kiwi battlers don't like 'untouchable' vibes.

Watching Kohli thoroughly enjoy himself at the expense of the Blackcaps started off being a little bit annoying. I quickly came to enjoy Kohli's antics as was simply a case of him expressing his passion for India and Test cricket, which felt like a vast contrast to the Blackcaps. Obviously it's easy for Kohli to do so when his team is dominating, but the Blackcaps could have shown similar levels of passion in trying to salvage a result. Instead they crumbled, mentally and skillfully. 

Hit me up when the limited overs cricket in India is finished and I'll emerge from my Plunket Shield dungeon/paradise.