As you'd expect, there is a lot of noise around the injuries to Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor in-between the second and third ODIs. Williamson and Taylor are Aotearoa's best batsmen and are our best batsmen ever, which offers a bunch of excuses for the loss in the second ODI to England and excuse moving forward throughout this series. Flip that perspective though and view the (possible) absences of Williamson and Taylor as highlighting areas of weakness, instead of falling back into the comfy cushion of excuses.

In the context of building towards a World Cup, those absences are low key ideal. Not only do we need to see how other players perform when greater responsibility is placed upon their shoulders, the microscope on weird selections and that poor man-management that I referred to last time, will tighten.

That is to say that Aotearoa did not lose the second ODI because of Williamson's absence, the Blackcaps were put in the shade in every aspect of the game by a rampant England side. England played poorly in the first game and almost won, they played well in the second and dominated every facet. Cricket fans around the world and especially those of the English variety, know all about such performances and for many kiwis this is their first look at an astronomically different England ODI group that came here for the last World Cup.

As always, there were some selection shenanigans that don't reflect positively on Lesson (more so ol' Hess dawg).

Mark Chapman deserves to be there in place of Kane Williamson, I just don't think selecting him to bat #3 in his debut is the best idea. Williamson bats #3 because he's a world-class batsman, he is our best #3 and has the experience to deal with such a tricky spot, while Chapman is making his ODI debut against a beastly England team.

Shifting Tom Latham or Henry Nicholls, maybe even going nuts and moving Mitchell Santner up to #3 for a game or so would be ideal. Nicholls batted #3 for Canterbury during the Ford Trophy, even with that information this is kinda crazy, but then what's if I said that Chapman never batted #3 in the Ford Trophy this summer.

Yes folks, the best run-scorer in the Ford Trophy scored all his runs batting #4/5 and did not bat #3 one single time in 50-over cricket this summer. Chapman has shown that he is a monster late in the innings and has the batsmanship to build his innings in the middle stages. Meanwhile, Nicholls spent the Ford Trophy batting #3.

Yet Chapman is walking out to bat in the first 5 overs, something he never did while averaging 80 with a strike-rate of 102.78 in the Ford Trophy.

Poor man-management is exactly that scenario. Good man-management is putting Chapman in the same position that he scored all those Ford Trophy runs and making his life easier, allowing him to play his natural game without any dribble of fear.

I was also bemused by the decision to select Lockie Ferguson over Ish Sodhi and to a lesser extent Todd Astle. I took this angle after the first game, after Sodhi had bowled fairly well, well enough to be one of Aotearoa's best bowlers in that game. Sodhi was then rewarded for that performance, in a win, by being dropped.

That was my exact concern in writing the game one debrief, I unfortunately feel like a Blackcaps oracle. This is another case of terrible man-management and I again ask you to put yourselves in the boots of Sodhi - how would you feel after years of being in and out of the Blackcaps, you return (in super weird circumstances) and do your job in taking 2w @ 6.30rpo and then you are dropped?

Fear. Under Brendon McCullum, the Blackcaps were fearless and now you can be dropped for doing your job.

And things get worse because England stuck to their two spinners, England stuck with their best bowling attack while the Blackcaps tried to be cute and tinker to, well, I guess suit the conditions. Adil Rashid didn't take a wicket, but he conceded just 3.20rpo off his 10 overs and bowled the most dot balls of any bowler in game two, while Moeen Ali took 2w @ 3.30rpo off his 10 overs.

You're not only messing with Sodhi's confidence and poorly handling his development, in the vacuum of the second ODI, Hesson fucked up in not going with two spinners again.
Sodhi and Santner are as good as Rashid and Ali - slight bias but I'd rock with Sodhi and Santner all day. Rashid and Ali know their exact role in ODIs through playing experience, through repetition, through being in scenarios constantly and regardless of pitch conditions, they know that they will be put in the best position.

Sodhi never knows if he's going to play, even if he does his job he's still left in the lurch. Santner doesn't know if he'll be the only spinner, or if he'll have his spin-twin at the other end in Sodhi operating as the attacking wicket-taker.

Shout out to Santner for his batting exploits thus far, I'll take responsibility for this having questioned his lower order abilities prior to the series. I'm still cautious though and England will continue to develop plans against Santner, so I'm not all the way convinced just yet.

Colin Munro's scores: 6 and 1 (SLOGGING AGAINST GOOD BOWLERS IS REALLY DIFFICULT).

Henry Nicholls' scores: 0 and 1.

Hit an ad to support the Niche Cache. We keeps it fuckin' real.

Peace and love 27.