In hosting England for a couple Tests, there were minor examples of transition and transformation for Aotearoa's Blackcaps that would quickly become an explosion of changes to the Blackcaps Test squad and their playing 11. Understandably, there was shock and horror at the Blackcaps performances in Australia and while those reactions were understandable given the hype around the tour and the belief that this beloved Blackcaps outfit can do no wrong, touring Australia only reinforced my belief that those peak summer weeks were part of a hefty shift in the Blackcaps cosmos.

I found this to be a rather simple case of a weakened Blackcaps team coming up against a rampant, frothing team of Aussies. There's no shame in that, quite the opposite in fact and the exposure some of the fresh Blackcaps gained in Australia was incredibly valuable. Not to mention the fact that this tour of Australia became a sieve, with the clunky pieces that no longer fit being collected in the sieve and put back in the pool of hungry cricketers chasing Blackcaps honours.

The icky Test schedule that the Blackcaps endured had let those clunky pieces gather and while they didn't have a great impact on the Blackcaps broth, at some point they needed to be shuffled out of the liquid. For some reason there was a squad that spread across both the England series and the Australia series, ultimately thought this didn't matter as the busier schedule conveniently aligned with more injuries and a lack of form to see a natural sorting process compensate for the weird selection antics.

17 different players were used in the Blackcaps tour of Australia. Slide back to the England series and we can add Daryl Mitchell to make in 18 over that period, a notable increase on the consistent 11-13 players we had become accustomed to. The only debutants though, were Lockie Ferguson and Glenn Phillips; Ferguson injured after bowling 11 overs and Phillips followed the trend of Aotearoa's Test debutants doing well with a knock of 52 on debut.

In this convoluted Blackcaps summer, Phillips' debut is buried deep in the weeds. Jeet Raval, Henry Nicholls and Kane Williamson didn't pass 50 in this series, yet Phillips did and this Phillips doesn't just join Mitchell in scoring runs on Test debut, like Mitchell, Phillips popped out of nowhere for a hard and fast Test. Just one Test, no momentum and fizz around what they could be as Test cricketers, just the one Test.

Which is all part of the funk here and I'm not highlighting the single appearance lads as a way of saying they should have been given further opportunities. This is an interesting sign of the growing pool of kiwi cricketers who could do something in Test cricket with further opportunities, who did their job when called upon. There are lads like Tom Blundell and Kyle Jamieson, who combined their own slick work with stars aligning for the back to back Test momentum to build. Then there are lads like Mitchell and Phillips, who had the slick work part sussed but couldn't quite wiggle into a favourable scenario.

To have such an emphatic moment of Blackcaps change, all the bits and pieces are required and valued. I'm sure we will see Phillips and Mitchell in the whites again soon enough, their presence this summer was reinforcement of Aotearoa's simmering talent waiting for a crack. Also part of the total package that we are exploring here, is straight up weird shit and the move from domestic middle-order/wicket-keeper batsman to Test opener was some weird shit.

Blundell had scored a century on debut and that's lovely, maybe not sign of things to come though. Even the idea of Blundell being the only batting cover in the Test squad was a bit crazy, especially with Jeet Raval watching his Test form drift off into oblivion and there is an intriguing tension here between the Blackcaps stumbling into this little pocket and this being a mastermind plot. Regardless of how this point was reached, Blundell finished as the leading run-scorer for Aotearoa in Australia and was the only Blackcaps batsman to score a century.

Australia won the Test and the series but the day belonged to new Black Caps opener Tom Blundell who struck his second Test century, a superb 121, in his fir...

There were numerous doosras delivered over the course of the summer and we wouldn't be here if oddities were thrown into the mix. The whole summer was a doosra, so obviously there were smaller doosras among that and I'd suggest that Blundell settling into a Test opener role was perhaps the most grand doosra of the summer. No one would have had a sniff of this occurring prior to the England series, even though Raval's form was a notable narrative.

I had a hunch that this summer would see changes, Blundell opening and slaying runs all around various stadiums wasn't part of that hunch though. Blundell would then finish 2nd in runs against India and after averaging 43 in Australia, Blundell went on to average 39 vs India and enter lockdown mode with an overall Test average of 47.22. Two years floated between Tests for Blundell and while his century at the MCG wasn't on debut, it kinda felt that way and this aligns with the undertone of batsman contributing when called up over the summer.

Not too many blokes contributed much in Australia and there was plenty of collateral damage to take us deeper into transition and transformation. Mitchell Santner's 4w @ 41.25avg vs England then became 1w @ 250avg and at this stage it's imperative to know that the best spinners in the world over the past 20-30 years have struggled in Australia.

Perhaps that's why Will Somerville finished with 1w @ 135avg and Todd Astle did a wee bit better with 3w @ 50.66avg. I highlight this because I refuse to judge kiwi spinners on what they do in Australia and based on what the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan, Daniel Vettori, Graeme Swann and Ravi Ashwin have done in Australia, it's legit bonkers to believe that any of these steady (?) Blackcaps Test spinners would be successful in a hostile Aussie environment.

Of course, for Santner, this was a continuation of his lack of wickets and this is what pushed him over the brink. In the previous world of sporadic Blackcaps Test cricket, Santner's lack of wickets was absorbed by the seamers doing their best work and around Santner was a solid framework that limited the impact of Santner's mediocrity. With that framework shattered in Australia, things got funky and the framework idea is most evident in what would soon happen vs India; based on Ajaz Patel's contributions vs India, I doubt much would have changed in that series if it was Santner playing vs India.

There was a build up of angst and pressure around Santner though, which is why a shift had to take place. At least Santner is still in the frame because the aftermath of this tour saw Astle give up the rather strong possibility that he may get a crack against India as the main spinner, stepping away from red ball cricket. At the same time, Somerville endured a drastic fall from grace as he then went on to play three Super Smash games before suffering an injury to rule him out of the summer.

Those who don't know much about domestic cricket matters in Aotearoa, may have then missed that Somerville's replacement for Auckland Louis Delport snared 17w @ 24.11avg and finished as the best Plunket Shield spinner. There is now a situation where Somerville is in some sort of battle with Delport to be Auckland's chief spinner next summer, which has obvious implications on Somerville's future Blackcaps hopes.

New Zealand's left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel picked up 5 wickets for 41 runs on the opening day of their 3-day warmup match against the Sri Lanka Board Presiden...

Suddenly, the Blackcaps Test spinner situation has been narrowed down to Patel and Santner. Ish Sodhi is in the mix given that two contenders vanished from this mix, yet Sodhi took 3w @ 80avg in his Plunket Shield campaign and this was a nudge worse than Santner's Plunket Shield stuff.

I had long been pondering the Blackcaps Test spinner situation and depending on your personal bias, any of those five lads could have been viewed as the best option. There was no stand-out, no one commanding selection and I moved away from highlighting this spinner over that spinner and simply rolling with who ever got the gig. That has changed drastically, perhaps the biggest shift of them all this summer and through a process of elimination more than anything else, Patel's the bloke left standing as the only real option right now.

Considering Patel had another strong Plunket Shield summer with 14w @ 26.07avg, he is deserving of that role. The way that the others fell off and presented Patel with this opportunity is super weird, similar to the Blundell scenario as it wasn't exactly predictable and there was a rapid shift from numerous contenders competing to just Patel.

All of which, stems from Australia and as Australia has been and is a tricky proposition for any spinner not named Nathan Lyon, it low key turned into a graveyard for the Blackcaps spinners. Raval was already deep in his struggles, Matt Henry couldn't maintain a loosening grip on his spot and three spinners saw their immediate Test futures change rather incredibly. Cheers Australia.

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