Persisting With Martin Guptill
Diggity deja vu
Take one look at this Blackcaps team and there's one joker who stands out like a sore thumb. This Blackcaps side is young and the older players in the side serve their purpose with a guy like Ross Taylor offering his infinite cricketing wisdom, or Neil Wagner offering freakish amounts of enthusiasm with the ball. While there is experience sprinkled throughout this Blackcaps side, the broad theme is that this is a young group of cricketers who are building towards being in Test cricket's upper tier.
Then we have Martin Guptill, who unlike Taylor or Wagner doesn't demand selection through what he's done in Test cricket previously or what he offers this team now. He's just there, not getting too many runs and clogging up a spot that could be given to a batsmen with more potential for long-term success. This wasn't always the case, as the Blackcaps under Brendon McCullum felt older, more experienced and geared for relative success in the here and now. Under Kane Williamson, we are looking forward at future success once the likes of Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Mitch Santner, Ish Sodhi and Matt Henry fully acquaint themselves with the rigours of Test cricket. Shit, we only need to look at Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander as a sign that Tim Southee and Trent Boult's best work may come with more experience.
Rather suddenly - despite not scoring a whole lot of runs for a while now - Guptill has gone from doing a job (some sort of job) at the top of the order to clogging up a spot. Regardless of how few runs Guptill scores, the persistent selection of Guppy to open in Test cricket seems more mind-boggling with every Test and subsequent failure that passes.
Two Tests against Zimbabwe appeared to be the perfect opportunity to blood Jeet Raval. Raval would have been eased into Test cricket against a Zim bowling attack that resembled a strong kiwi club cricket bowling attack, he would have then had two Tests to his name before facing a hostile challenge of his mental and technical ability against South Africa's bowling attack. When Raval was selected, it made sense because it seemed as though Raval had his foot in the door and would be given an opportunity.
Instead, Guptill played all three-and-a-bit Tests in Africa. Guptill had scores of 40, 87 and 11 against Zim before putting up 7, 8 and 0 against South Africa. Even an 87 against Zim was pretty disappointing for Guptill as he has a habit of scoring runs against weaker opposition; Guptill's Test average only climbs above 30 against Bangladesh (245), Sri Lanka (33.08), West Indies (69.25) and Zim (49.66). In South Africa, as a guest to the Dale Steyn/Vernon Philander comeback party, Guptill stood no chance.
Neither did Tom Latham, however Latham is at the start of his career. This is a learning-curve for Latham and so was his recent stint in County cricket with Kent, at least Latham has made Test cricket and learning the craft of opening in Test cricket a priority. Guptill on the other hand is knee-deep in the T20 circuit, perfecting the art of smacking a cricket ball to all parts which has no relevance to how he approaches opening in Test cricket.
I mean, if Guptill was to come out and smack the ball around in Test cricket, effectively being used as a pinch-hitting gun-slinger, I wouldn't really have an issue. That's what Guptill is good at, that would be his job in the team and it'd be an interesting little wildcard for the Blackcaps. But that's not the case, Guptill tries so hard to be a typical Test opener, without much success or the apparent desire to knuckle down and perfect the craft.
Next, the Blackcaps head to India. In India, Guptill has played four Test's, has eight innings' to his name and a glorious average of 23.37 at a strike-rate of 46.55. In South Africa, Guptill was incapable of defending against quality seam bowling and that's been the case for much of his career. In India, Guptill will face an arsenal of spin bowling and despite it being a vastly different challenge, I'm not confident.
Even the idea of moving Guptill down the order doesn't get me excited. Henry Nicholls and Mitchell Santner are there, learning about Test cricket and how they approach middle-order batting and moving Guptill into one of those spots will just put a halt to their learning process. For what? To add a few years to Guptill's Test career?
At the moment, it feels as though we are treading water with having Guptill opening in Test cricket. Raval is there and he could have been going to India with a few Tests against Zim, plus a massive learning experience against South Africa. If Guptill is dropped in India, Raval will be thrown to the wolves. Even if it isn't Raval and it's someone like Hamish Rutherford - who has fairly obviously technical holes in his play outside off-stump - I wouldn't mind because both Raval and Rutherford have more long-term upside than Guptill.
Perhaps it's Ross Taylor, King Rossco, who is in Mike Hesson and Kane Williamson's ear about keeping Guptill there for another Test, another series; "he'll score some runs, one more chance, trust me bro". I don't know, I definitely know that Guptill stopped deserving to be selected long ago and it's got to the point now where any number of different candidates could have gained valuable experience at the top of the order in this time.
This is one of/the biggest weird situation regarding the Blackcaps at the moment, something that they clearly haven't quite got right. Even the prospect of Guptill scoring runs in India kinda gives me shivers as Guptill just isn't a long-term Test opener and if he does get runs, that extends his opening stand by another series or two. Hand the reins over and let someone with more potential for long-term success start their journey, at least someone who is heavily invested in perfecting the craft of opening in Test cricket to join Tom Latham.