Blackcaps vs Pakistan: Series Debrief
King Rossco
For those silly buggers who believe Test cricket is struggling, a dramatic Test win on a mellow Tuesday night in Hamilton for the Blackcaps could be seen as somewhat of a saviour. That's for silly buggers though, for everyone else who understands that Test cricket is pretty damn cool at the moment, this serves as yet another example.
Aotearoa's Test cricket team have completed an emphatic bounce-back from a fairly average 2016 up to this point, snatching another Test win in the dying moments of the second Test to seal the series 2-0. It's definitely been a tough year and given that the Blackcaps didn't do so well over in South Africa against a team that has righted their own ship and is forming a formidable foe even without AB de Villiers, Dale Steyn or Morne Morkel, or that they struggled in India against the No.1 Test team in the world; the performance against Australia in Aotearoa earlier this year stands out like a sore thumb.
Back on home soil, a slightly different Blackcaps team did the business and we should first and foremost relish that our Test team were ruthless in Aotearoa. Just as it's bloody tough to tour India, we want it to be a nightmare (on the field, a joy off it) to tour Aotearoa and that's exactly what the Blackcaps did under Kaptain Kane Williamson.
I do feel for Pakistan though and that they have slipped down the rankings after their rampant form in the past 12 months. They were without a tour game thanks to Mother Nature and if we were touring India, Sri Lanka or United Arab Emirates without any warm-up fixtures, talkback radio would be going nuts. Aotearoa presents a unique challenge and even though Pakistan had recently toured England, Aotearoa is different, especially in late November and especially when you've departed England to play a series back in the UAE then on to Aotearoa, as Pakistan did.
Heading into this series, I wrote about the struggles of Tim Southee and Trent Boult. These struggles, or concerns were warranted as they had both declined in production over the last three years. Southee led all wicket-takers with 13 wickets at an average of 16.38 while Boult only played the one game, with 5 wickets at 15.20.
There was also the obvious concern about Martin Guptill's opening spot and Ross Taylor's lean patch of runs (not as dramatic as many people made out to be as Taylor was a gun for Sussex on the Kiwi County Tour). Taylor was the only batsman to hit a century in this series while Guptill's replacement and Auckland comrade ... and Suburbs New Lynn club comrade Jeet Raval looked right at home in the Blackcaps sweater, scoring 148 runs in four innings at 49.33.
Consider the boxes ticked then, right? I'm incredibly intrigued by the changing nature of this Blackcaps team - Raval and Colin de Grandhomme look like Blackcaps - although that Southee led the wicket-takers and Taylor led the run-scorers (2 runs more than Raval) points to the core of this team remaining strong. Or a couple of our big guns stepping up, as we'd like them to.
As we'd like them to, but just like Prince Kane doesn't score a century every innings, we need other blokes contributing. Tom Latham wasn't in such good touch here, but Raval was. If Taylor's not scoring runs, then Prince Kane does. If Southee's struggling with the new-ball, Matt Henry can build some pressure. If it's nibbling around then de Grandhomme steps up, if it's flat, then Neil Wagner does his thing.
That's why Raval and de Grandhomme just feel like Blackcaps. Raval is comfortable with his game and while he and Latham are similar, there's no confusion as to what their role is in this team; see off the new-ball, try go big but just set it up for Prince Kane and King Rossco. De Grandhomme has x-factor and makes things happen, whether it's with the ball, bat or in the field as we saw with that crucial run-out of Sarfraz Ahmed. He'll definitely encounter some struggles - along with Raval - as other teams suss them out, but there are two stats that best reflect how de Grandhomme fits into the role required by the Blackcaps; strike-rate and run-rate.
De Grandhomme had scores of 29, 37 and 32, suggesting that he was good enough to get a start with his stroke-playing nature always offering up chances as he was dismissed caught all three times. His strike-rate of 86.72 was only bettered by Tim Southee and Matt Henry (both were over 100, bowlers huh?) and that gives the Blackcaps a counter-attacking/punishing presence in the middle order with BJ Watling as the safety net. Sure, at 30yrs and with a heap of experience, we'd hope that de Grandhomme can understand when to settle it down, but there's a touch of Andrew Flintoff (or that kiwi all-rounder from yester-year) about the way he could possibly change the course of many innings' to come.
Conceding just 2.16rpo, de Grandhomme's seam-bowling is perfectly suited to his role in the bowling attack. This comes from de Grandhomme being fully comfortable in his strength which is bowling medium pace and nibbling it around, not trying to speed it up and go hunting for a wicket. De Grandhomme is a vital cog in building pressure because he's the fourth-seamer and if he's able to hold up an end, then the strike bowlers who all go about their work slightly differently, can attack.
This all offers clarity and after struggling through what was a murky river of identity, there's clarity in what the Blackcaps are doing. We've got a clear picture of the role our bowlers play and in Southee, Boult, Henry, Wagner and de Grandhomme, there should always be four seamers capable of doing a job. We know we've got an opening pair to ride with for the foreseeable future and we know that there's enough batting there that we should be able to score over 200 runs in an innings more often than not.
Some would view this series as a turning point as the Blackcaps got back to winning Test matches. That's nice and all, yet I've got it down as a turning point because this was our first real glimpse at how a Aotearoa Test cricket team under Kaptain Kane could look moving forward and how they are going to play their cricket.
Die two-Test series, die.