Batting Stats from the 2017-18 Blackcaps ODI Summer
The Aotearoa summer of ODI cricket came to a blistering halt when Jonny Bairstow went boom and England claimed a seven wicket win (with more than 17 overs remaining) to clinch the series decider against the Blackcaps in Christchurch. Ross Taylor wasn’t able to take the park after leaving Dunedin in bubble wrap and the whole thing went pretty poorly.
However recency bias tends to shadow a lot of sporting assessment so it’s easy to forget that the Blackcaps won eight ODIs in a row before the Poms rolled up. So how did the lads stack up when you take the whole home summer and slide it under the microscope? That’s what we’re gonna find out. 13 ODIs against three different teams. Lots of runs, lots of wickets. We’ll start with the batsmen and swing it around to the bowlers in the next article, here are the complete Statty McStatties…
You already know that Ross Taylor was the star of the summer. Even before he smacked one of the all-time Blackcaps ODI knocks for 181not against England, all while copping injuries that would cripple a mortal man, he was dominating things. A 57 against the Windies bookended by not out 40-odds. A couple halfies against Pakistan. Then scores of 113, 10 and 181* against England. No surprises that the Caps lost both games that series in which he didn’t play – although an unbeaten ton by Kane Williamson got them close in the Wellington ODI.
King Rossco started things well and got better and better as the summer progressed. Nothing new there, ever since he had that eye surgery he’s averaged 72.61 with four tons and four fiddies in 18 home ODIs (and 65.50 ave in all ODIs since then). Plus there’s the damned eye test (no pun intended) which Rossco passes with flying colours every time. He just looks in such good touch. He’s so much fun to watch, smacking it to all angles of the wagon wheel.
While Taylor was out there bossing things, it often felt like Kane Williamson was a step short of his usual greatness and yet here he was averaging 53 for the home season. You can see from his strike rate that he had to battle for a lot of those runs yet he still cashed in for a couple hundreds – 115 against Pakistan and 112* against England. In between he was only once dismissed in single figures while also adding 73 in the third game against PAK (on a tricky wicket) and a solid 45 against England when Ross Went Boom, which featured a possibly dodgy dismissal caught down the leg side. Coulda all been more had he not been rested for the first two ODIs against the Windies and been injured for one of the England matches as well. 11 ODI centuries in only 127 games for Prince Kane, who hasn’t been dismissed for a duck in a One Day International for over two years now.
That last stat is pretty nice for a number three coming in after Martin Guptill and Colin Munro. They had four ducks between themselves and a best opening partnership in the England series of… 12 runs. A lot of people probably consider this a breakout summer for Colin Munro and it was definitely the summer that he booked his full-time Blackcaps gig with some enormous hitting power and a little extra hype sauce. Thing is, he did most of that in the T20s. Specifically in the West Indies T20s, where he scored 53 (37 balls), 66 (23) & 104 (53). He whalloped a couple more half-tons later in the Tri-Series too.
Check out his ODI stats and it wasn’t the same. He passed 50 twice against Pakistan but didn’t follow on past 60 either time. Dismissed for 49 against the Windies and 49 against England on top of that. That’s okay, a pinch-hit opener like him doesn’t have to necessarily take it on to triple figures when he’s setting the platform for the likes of Guptill, Williamson and Taylor. However when you only get to double figures once in five games against England, there’s an issue. After three solid starts against the West Indies he was then out six times in the next ten games without even facing a fifth delivery (read that twice so you grasp the depth of it) and that one innings he got going in against ENG he scored at a strike-rate under 80 which isn’t exactly the mission objective. At least he banked up some runs before the New Year though, plus he’s now dedicating himself completely to the white ball in order to suss out this role going into the next World Cup so you know he’s giving his best tonk.
Martin Guptill didn’t play the West Indies series, missing out with a lingering hamstring injury that allowed George Worker to step up and add two more fifties to his growing collection. Georgie Boy’s only played seven ODIs but he’s passed fifty three times at an average of 37.50 so he’s hanging around for the next time Guptill/Munro gets hurt.
Guppy then returned for the Pakistan series and was in top form. He got starts in every one of them, including two big scores: 48, 86*, 45, 31 and 100 for that quintet of victories. Obviously things got harder when England dropped by and he had a couple non-starts in Wellington and Dunedin. Bagged a patient 50 at the Mount and then 47 more in Christchurch as wickets tumbled around him – his dismissal made it 79/5 in the decider. Shame he couldn’t add another couple big ones to all that but he still scored the third most runs at the third best average over the Blackcaps home stuff.
Over 13 ODIs there were a fair few players that came in and out of the XIs. A total of 18 different players added to their ODI caps along the way and thanks to a mix of injury and rotation there were only three who played every game… and they were not the three you’d necessarily expect: Henry Nicholls, Colin Munro and Tom Latham.
Along the way we saw a little pleasant clarification of where players stand in Lesson’s eyes. Neil Broom’s inadequacy in ODIs against sides other than Bangladesh and Ireland was well known after the 2016-17 season but he still came in to sub for Kane against the West Indies… and scored 8 runs in two innings. By the time a Pakistan limited overs tour and a T20 tri-series were out of the way it was Mark Chapman filling in three times for Taylor and Williamson. Definitely a more exciting inclusion although Chappers also got caught out at the top level with 9 runs in three knocks. Got done by the spinners two of those times, although the dude also batted in three different positions which is weird (three, four & five). Hence it remains to be seen if Chapman will hold onto that next-man-up batting gig.
Nothing of note from the tailenders who mostly all got a chance to swing the willow but nobody pumped a quick 30-40 or anything. Shout out to Tim the Tool Man Southee, who faced 51 deliveries across seven bats and didn’t even hit a single six. Uncharacteristic. And also Matt Henry, the only guy who played an ODI this summer without getting to bat. Speaking of sixes, Martin Guptill led the way with 10 of them while Colin de Grandhomme and Colin Munro predictably each smacked 8 and stunningly Mitchell Santner snuck in with 7, one more than Ross Taylor managed over the last few months. Taylor topped the pops with 53 fours, to be fair. Munro scored 208 of his 312 runs in boundaries. Taylor scored 248 of his 626 in boundaries.
So how about that Santner lad then? They called him an all-rounder from the beginning and early on in his career he showed some sexy flashes of exactly that. Shades of Dan Vettori in more than a couple ways. In Santner’s first 11 innings in ODIs, he scored 294 runs at an average of 49.00, aided by a bunch of not outs but also with five scores of 30+ which is more than decent for a young player batting primarily at 7-8. In his following 24 innings he scored 247 runs at an average of 15.44 and still he’d never passed 50 in an ODI. Chuck in scores of 7, 6 & 1 against Pakistan and he was basically just a tail-ender in disguise.
Then he went wild in Hamilton (wouldn’t be the first to do so) and everything changed (ditto). Santner’s unbeaten 45 from 27 balls at the Tron set up a final-over victory for the kiwis and he hasn’t looked back since. He chased that with 63 not out in Mount Maunganui, his first ODI halfie, then scored 41 in Wellington (run out at the not striker’s end, which turned out to be a crucial bit of bad luck in an unsuccessful run chase) and then beat his personal best with 67 in Christchurch. Seems like the dude figured out a couple ways to deal with that short ball and finally found his hitting strength again. Listen to some of the talk out of the camp and they reckon he’s a sneaky big hitter. Well against England he scored 216 runs off 204 balls. This is the guy we were told we were getting.
By the way, it seems Santner loves a bit of England. 317 of his 771 ODI runs have come against the Poms and at an average of 41.14 and strike rate of 109.72. He also now averages 44.25 when batting in NZ and 16.38 when batting overseas, so that’s the next thing to get going.
Colin de Grandhomme was absent in the early part season for personal reasons. While he was gone it was Todd Astle that was given the all-rounder duties and the pair split the summer pretty much down the middle. Astle played the first six games and then CDG returned for the final seven. Which means we can pretty much compare their stats directly, given that they were each there as a number seven batsman (with some scenario-based fluctuation) and fifth bowling option.
- Astle with the bat: 69 runs at 34.50 (113.11 SR)
- CDG with the bat: 175 runs at 35.00 (128.67 SR)
Nothing too special on either count. De Grandhomme had that one magnificent innings in his first go back, smashing a counter-attacking 74 not out from 40 balls to win that fourth game against Pakistan. That knock was everything that people love about the Silent Giant, that almost nonchalant display of ferocity. Casually despatching the ball out of the park with regularity. Except that the story of CDG’s career tends to involve him living off a couple rare successes (remember his Test debut?) and three times against England he was out cheaply going for an early slog. That’s the way he bats and he’s not about to change what got him here… but a few of those swings were rather concerning. 103 runs were scored in two uneaten digs against Pakistan. He then averaged 14.40 with the bat against England.
As for Astle, he’s the opposite kind of player. Steady and modestly dependable rather than the peaks and valleys of what CDG can bring. These were the first ODIs of his career, having gotten injured in India when he seemed primed to play (Rahul Dravid must’ve been so upset), and he didn’t get too many situations where he could build an innings. 15* on debut vs WI in Whangarei helped polish off a run chase although he scored a solid 49 against the Windies next up in Chch. Definite points to CDG here even with his own issues but he also had better opportunities to bat in. We’ll check back in on their bowling comparisons next time.
Which leaves us with two batsmen in the middle order who’ve been under varying pressures for a year now in this team and who each might have found their places at five and six. Hank Nicholls hadn’t played an ODI in Aotearoa for 21 months and he’d batted at four or five in all his prior ones when he was picked to come in at his new position of six against the Windies. He responded with a wonderful 83 not out in Christchurch in the second game of that tour, top scoring as the Blackcaps set 325/5 in their first innings – going on to win by 204 runs. He then added a couple fiddies against Pakistan but then things turned to garbage.
A golden duck against Pakistan came in between those two 50s and then he only scored 2 runs in his next four afterwards. His summer in scores reads as thus: 17, 83*, 18*, 50, DNB, 0, 52*, 1, 0, 1, 0, 13* & 55. He hit the winning six in Dunedin while batting with Ross Taylor but a hobbled Rossco had already scored 23 of the first 30 runs of that partnership. Hank then bounced back with that half-century in the fifth game, his fourth 50 of the summer. There are doubts in there that he can score and rotate the strike from ball one, which you really need at #6, but he came through the rough stuff and his overall numbers look alright. He’ll be there next time around. Crazy to see a bloke pass fifty four times while also getting three ducks and two 1s. Only Ross Taylor had more scores of 50+ but only Colin Munro had as many zeroes.
Thus we close on Tom Latham, a bloke who is in there largely because of his glovework behind the stumps (he’s no Adam Gilchrist but we worked a few keepers in the T20s and none laid down the challenge). Latham, like Nicholls, didn’t play the Champions Trophy (although he tonned up against Ireland in the pre-tourney) but was in there with the gloves to bat five over in India and he scored an unbeaten ton in Mumbai. Locked and loaded then… however three starts against the Windies led to a top score of 37 and he didn’t top that against Pakistan. With the pressure back on he then scored a fine 79 against England in the first ODI and added a quality 71 in the fourth. Both innings included big partnerships with Ross Taylor and that’s not a coincidence. Neither is Latham’s success in India – both those things come down to his ability to play spin.
He’s still far from stable in that role, especially with a number of young wicket-keeper batsmen banging down the door domestically, but like Hank he’s at least shown his value (and unlike Hank he didn’t get any not outs to pad the average – Latham scored 14 more runs than Nicholls but averaged ten runs less in the same number of innings).
Latham’s home record is ordinarily trash. Kiwi wickets obviously suit seam way more than spin so Latham’s strengths are clearer when he’s batting away from home – 450 runs at 75.00 in India, for example. He averaged close to 60 in three games in South Africa when the Caps went there in 2015. All up he scores at close to 45 outside of the homeland and yet in Aotearoa he still only packs them in at 23.17. That gets even worse when he has to keep wicket. As a keeper in NZ he averages 18.41 with the bat. That’s after a couple 70-odds last week too.
That gets skewed by past failures though. You can’t live that stuff down (remember all the ducks he compiled last summer?) but if you dig deeper you can see that he’s getting better. He tends to maintain a decent pace to his innings in the middle order and if you add the India series into this lot then as a keeper batting five he scores them at 41.50, which is top notch. Eventually he needs to show the same consistency on our green pastures as he does on the dusty ones but he finished strong so all goods for now.
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