Blackcaps In Australia: ODI Squad
Depending on your perspective of this summer's cricketing antics, it may feel like this summer following the Blackcaps has a tumultuous exercise full of excitement, head-scratching, stink vibes and enjoyable dominance. In the space of a few months, we've been in a zorb rolling down Blackcaps hill as we try to figure out selection nuance, blokes in and out of form, let alone all the straight up weird shit that his gone down on the field and on the periphery of the team.
The zorb has reached flat land and while it's been a fun ride, I'm bloody dizzy in pondering all sorts of Blackcaps equations. Luckily, this was wet zorb and I was able to slither around at the bottom instead of rolling with the zorb's rotations; when mayhem (Blackcaps or worldy matters) ensues, tighten your circle and go within. With the Blackcaps ODI squad named to head across the ditch, there is a vibe of this group representing a settling down of the scattered energy and after seeing Aotearoa's best red-ballers in action recently, we are graced with the best white ball cricketers being called upon to head to Australia.
This squad features someone like Kyle Jamieson, who is fresh on the scene but feels like the bro who has been in our cricketing lives for a couple years. Through the process of making his ODI and Test debut, we currently know plenty about Jamieson and *did you know* that Kyle was a batsman at Auckland Grammar School!?
Seriously though: I'm a hearty South Aucklander, but real recognise real and shout out to AGS as they will have a trio of Grammar soldiers in the same Blackcaps squad and maybe the same playing 11 now that Lockie Ferguson joins Jimmy Neesham and Jamieson.
Despite being the newest lad, Jamieson has been front and centre in recent weeks. Ferguson and Matt Henry on the other hand, they have been beneath the surface on the domestic circuit. Here are how they have been going in domestic cricket since returning from the Australian Test series...
Matt Henry
Ford Trophy: 1w, 2w.
Plunket Shield: 4w, 4w.
Lockie Ferguson
Ford Trophy: 0w, 2w.
Plunket Shield: 1w, 3w, 2w, 2w.
Both Henry and Ferguson are currently among the best Plunket Shield bowlers, which includes the Plunket Shield first stanza earlier in the summer. Henry's got 17w @ 29avg and Ferguson has 12w @ 21.16avg, all of which highlights that these two have been steady in domestic cricket with the type of performances we would expect from Blackcaps battlers dropping down a level.
Jimmy Neesham is in a similar spot, having spent more time in domestic cricket this summer than with the various Blackcaps squads. Don't let that be an illusion about Neesham's form though as he has been putting up decent numbers with bat and ball in multiple domestic formats, which along with stuff like Henry's wicket-taking form, gets regular explorations in my Domestic Cricket Daily.
The last time we saw Neesham was in the ODI series vs India. Neesham didn't score 20+ in his 3inns and twice took 1w, going without a wicket in another innings. Since then Neesham swung into four-day mode and put up scores of 61, 3 and 63 along with 2w, 3w and 3w. Neesham entered that India series after a strong Ford Trophy campaign, which didn't translate into ODI runs/wickets and now we have Neesham heading to Australia on the back of some hearty Plunket Shield work. This means we have no gauge for how Neesham will perform, I'd suggest he would be wise to be near his best as we know all about Aotearoa's brewing cricket depth these days.
Martin Guptill has also been low key impressive in the Plunket Shield after two 50+ scores in three ODI games vs India. Putting up scores of 110, 25, 63 and 8 for Auckland Aces in Plunket Shield, Guptill will be eager to build on how he and Henry Nicholls were able to bat through the first 10 overs vs India; something we didn't really get with the Guptill/Colin Munro combo. Australia in Australia is a whole new beast though and it'll be intriguing to see whether this Guptill/Nicholls combo can hit a nek level, or if they (understandably) plateau a wee bit.
If I were to dive deep into one pocket of this Blackcaps ODI squad, it is the spinners in Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner. Remember that my favourite piece of information I learned and shared during this summer was that most of the best modern spinners to ever play Test cricket sucked in Australia. We can pretend that a different spinner would have done better than Santner did in the Test series, ultimately though if Muttiah Muralitharan, Daniel Vettori, Graeme Swann, Ravi Ashwin and anyone not named Shane Warne or Nathan Lyon were mediocre in Australia, would any of these kiwi lads be any better?
Thus, we know Australia isn't the isn't place for spinners to tour in Test cricket and perhaps this may apply to ODI cricket as well. That's the first thing to watch out for, then we have the fact that Santner and Sodhi have been under-whelming recently, in home conditions.
Plunket Shield
Mitchell Santner: 104.5ov, 7w @ 57.42avg/3.83rpo.
Ish Sodhi: 54.5ov, 3w @ 80avg/4.37rpo.
Ford Trophy
Ish Sodhi: 50ov, 4w @ 58.75avg/4.70rpo.
ODI vs India
Ish Sodhi: 4ov, 1w @ 27avg/6.75rpo.
Mitchell Santner: 20ov, 0w @ 5.85rpo.
Sodhi (36.42avg) and Santner (38.07avg) start with ho-hum ODI records and when broken down further, they don't appear to be improving either. Santner had his worst year of his ODI career in 2019 with an average of 50.90 through 14inns bowled and has only averaged less than 30 in one year of his career, back in 2017. Sodhi has a better record, which saw three years of hearty improvement between 2015-2018, although Sodhi's never averaged under 30 in a year of ODI cricket.
Also weird here are Sodhi and Santner's numbers under Kane Williamson's captaincy. Keep in mind that Williamson's a Northern Districts kaumatua and Sodhi/Santner have been ND youngins throughout Williamson's career...
Ish Sodhi
Brendan McCullum as captain: 14.33avg/3.90rpo.
Tom Latham as captain: 36.60avg/4.75rpo.
Kane Williamson as captain: 38.46avg/5.89rpo.
Mitchell Santner
Brendan McCullum as captain: 28.46avg/6.80rpo.
Tom Latham as captain: 25.90avg/4.59rpo.
Kane Williamson as captain: 42.93avg/4.72rpo.
This is only notable because it's the same for both lads and while it would be rude to compare their work under the different captains given that they have both played far more games under Williamson than McCullum and Latham, the numbers with Williamson as captain are rather high, too high. They are however in-tune with their overall career numbers and all of this sets the scene for an enticing three-game stretch where either Sodhi and/or Santner could rectify some of this.
Everyone who plays will be under the pump in Australia. If an alien were to peep these numbers for the Blackcaps spinners, they may question why they are in this squad and then this is amplified by touring Australia where shit can hit the fan quickly. It's debatable how important the spinners will be to the team's success in Australia, this feels deeper than that though and the summer of transition and transformation may have a few more tricks to work through.
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Peace and love 27.