Aotearoa vs West Indies: Good Bit Of Whack Whack Cricket
Rain? Chur. Hamish Bennett falling over when he bowls? Chur. Mellow West Indies? Chur. Popped knee caps (plural)? Chur. Impressive performances with funky T20I 1st 11 implications? Chur. Bit of a wild couple of days in the Blackcaps T20I realm.
Aotearoa's Blackcaps rolled out the status-quo for their two wins over West Indies with the third game rained out, executing at a higher level and with a certain buzz in their work that at the very least makes them hard to beat. Low key, part of the beauty in watching Blackcaps cricket and something that the better teams in the world always tap into regardless of format are clear plans, specific ploys to win a battle and the ability to execute. Chuck in a fielding intensity that is rarely matched by touring teams and these type of series often feel like a dose of rinse and repeat.
Without being put under legit pressure by the Windies, there's no need for a deep T20I analysis and much of my funk zones in on how this flows into the next T20I series. That's largely because the best performers for Aotearoa looked crisp and got their opportunity partly due to the absence of other players. Glenn Phillips' last T20I prior to this series was back in late 2018, while Devon Conway was playing in his first Blackcaps series and neither was in the frame to this extent last year, all of which forms the intrigue of how the Blackcaps T20I batting line up is built in the coming 12 months.
The bowling was fairly chill, with Lockie Ferguson's 7w @ 8avg/6.22rpo the highlight and of course his rapid bowling is juicy, although the accuracy and control of Ferguson is where his x-factor hits the nek level. Across the board, the bowlers did their job and the only splash of funk to ponder here are the fringe-seamers given that Trent Boult was among the best Indian Premier League bowlers to go with his status as an Aotearoa legend; Boult, Ferguson, Southee, Jamieson sounds lovely.
Maybe the best way to frame this is to imagine that Hamish Bennett took the most wickets in this series, or Scott Kuggeleijn (like Phillips) carried his strong Caribbean Premier League work back to Aotearoa to dominate. If either or both of those lads were clearly the best kiwi bowlers, then it would create intrigue around how this bowling group shapes up over the summer. Without Kane Williamson, Colin Munro or Colin de Grandhomme, Phillips and Conway dominated.
Phillips has clearly hit some sort of nek level and not just because his Steve Smith styles resulted in him whacking boundaries with his and various dislocated knee caps. Phillips has a T20 record of 32.17avg/137.03sr and any T20 average over 30 is impressive, although that dips down to 25.54 when Phillips is playing for Aotearoa in T20I cricket and thus Phillips appears to be elevating his play to the international arena.
Don't sleep on Phillips as a high quality batsman overall as he has a First-Class average of 38.86, averaging 30+ in all three non-international formats. Phillips' last few international games though, will have everyone thinking that life is all good when you dislocate your knee cap as Phillips scored 52 on Test debut earlier this year, packaged with a duck in the second dig and then after his third year as a CPL monster, Phillips returned to the Blackcaps with a brutal 22 and then 108 with an overall strike-rate of 224.13.
In between the CPL and this T20I series, Phillips was playing Plunket Shield and of course there were runs scored for Auckland Aces in the longer format as well. Phillips played three games, batting five times with two half-centuries in there. In 2020, Phillips scored a half-century on Test debut, dominated the CPL again, scored solid Plunket Shield runs and then went nutty vs West Indies.
Not quite Devon Conway though and here are his last 10 games of cricket...
2019/20 Plunket Shield: 0, 19*, 94.
2020/21 Plunket Shield: 31, 81, 27, 94, 4, 16, 157.
Aotearoa A vs West Indians: 46*, 41*.
Blackcaps vs West Indies T20I: 41, 65*.
How Conway goes about his work his interesting considering he's more of a smooth operator than Phillips' variety of smacking techniques. Conway can go large over cover/point and whipping full deliveries off his pads, then there is his ability to manipulate the ball with soft hands and that means picking out gaps in the out-field. Conway had a strike-rate of 160.60 in this series and it all looked effortless, perhaps because Conway hit 9 fours and 5 sixes, which looks very different to Phillips' split of 11/11 and Kieron Pollard's 4/12.
Teeny weeny sample size there, although it is a base from which we can start to suss out Conway. Conway can definitely hit sixes and he even hit those with ease, yet his ability to score runs without too much risk could prove to be an important factor moving forward. Phillips and Conway batted #3 and #4 in this series, which is an injection of selection conundrums straight into the veins when flowing back to the series vs India last summer when the Blakcaps rolled out a top-four of Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson and Colin de Grandhomme.
Now Munro, Williamson and de Grandhomme were unavailable and this is where things get enticing. Seifert took Munro's spot up the top of the order and while he was alright in sparking the innings up like Mike Tyson's bong, this kinda shows how certain perceptions can be rolled out through the media as there was all sorts of Seifert yarns leading into this series as a B-Mac type of joker and yet no one was taking a peek at what Phillips was up to.
Seifert deserves another crack at the opening role for sure, then there's Phillips and Conway replacing Williamson and de Grandhomme. Not only that, but Phillips and Conway were the best batsmen in this two-game sample size and we now have Guptill, Munro, Seifert, Phillips, Williamson, Conway and de Grandhomme sniffing around the same roles. Slide down the order a notch and Jimmy Neesham batted once, cracking boundaries at Eden Park and thus there are zero insights to offer other than Neesham, Daryl Mitchell and de Grandhomme (if he's bumped out of that top order) competing for middle order spots.
A couple Aotearoa A squads were named as well, one for this week's game vs West Indies A and another for a game the following week vs Pakistan. Both these squads feel a lot closer to a genuine Aotearoa A outfit than the last squad and here are a few notes...
Doug Bracewell is back and he had a solid Plunket Shield first stanza with a century and 11w @ 24avg/2.58rpo.
Ish Sodhi is back in longform cricket and he had a solid Plunket Shield first stanza with 10w @ 25.60avg/3.38rpo.
Don't overlook Lockie Ferguson's First-Class bowling average of 24.68, nor the fact that Ferguson averages below 26 in all three non-international formats.
My observations suggest the second-tier seamer group is: Nathan Smith, Ed Nuttall, Jacob Duffy, Blair Tickner and Ed Nuttall.
Henry Cooper is in the first squad, Joe Carter takes his spot in the second squad.
Dane Cleaver is the first wicket-keeper, then Cameron Fletcher takes his spot.
Cole McConchie is in the first squad, then Rachin Ravindra comes in.
Mark Chapman and Tim Seifert are in both squads, getting a decent opportunity at that level.
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Peace and love.