Coaching/Training

Let's start by putting ourselves in the big boots of Kyle Jamieson. Having been on the radar for a few years, Jamieson may have encountered the training staff of the Blackcaps before entering the Blackcaps group although it would have been minimal; Blackcaps staff handle Blackcaps business. For Jamieson or any other prospect who is either in a similar position as a clear prospect or bursts on to the Blackcaps radar with a hot summer, stepping into the Blackcaps group means that you now have access to Chris Donaldson as well as bowling coach Shane Jurgenson.

Jamieson stepped into Test cricket and the international arena, enjoying fairly quick success. Two things happen from that point as opposition players and teams start to build insight on Jamieson via video footage and trends that emerge, while at the same time Jamieson starts a consistent training regime under former Aotearoa sprinter Donaldson. Weights, running, flexibility and recovery strictly designed for international cricket.

There were hints to the work laid down by Jamieson last winter and any surprise of improvement between kiwi summers, overlooks the mahi these players do when not playing. Quite simply; put the best cricketers in the best cricket training regime and we've seen the results. Same goes for Jurgenson and batting coach Luke Ronchi, yet the standard yarn of 'wtf do these blokes do?' is rolled out.

Skill coaches at this level are primarily there to facilitate and for those who have never coached anything, that sounds pretty easy - hence you don't coach anything. At this level of cricket, the players know what they do well, what they want to do better and how their opponents are dealing with them. Player and coach combine to suss out any improvements, plus they combine to find new ways to be effective.

How has the bowling unit been successful over a fairly long period of time? Continuous skill development and consistent cricket. Tim Southee and Trent Boult have tweaked ways to nip the ball both ways for a number of years, Neil Wagner found success with the short-ball and then sharpened that tool to keep on challenging batsmen. For the batsmen, Tom Latham is always under the microscope of opposition bowlers and he must iron out any technique kinks while the same applies for the other established batsmen. Tom Blundell has to move from middle-order/batsmen to Test opener and he's not doing that all alone.

Ponder those two a bit further and the general fielding roles these blokes take on when entering the Blackcap Test team. Blundell's a wicket-keeper for Wellington Firebirds and then he is patrolling the out-field for the Blackcaps, before slipping into the the various close-in fielding duties under the lid. How would you deal with only doing one fielding job throughout your cricketing career and then being short mid-wicket at the Test level?

Latham and Henry Nicholls wouldn't have done too much work under the lid while playing for Canterbury and they then did stints in that role for Aotearoa. Daryl Mitchell catches everything behind the stumps for Northern Districts Knights and while he did pop into the Blackcaps slip cordon this summer, any new player has to abide by the pecking order. Ross Taylor didn't waltz into first-slip for his Test debut in late 2007.

Ronchi's promotion to batting coach saw the fielding coach role move to 'by committee' status and given the blokes involved and the Blackcaps fielding this summer - that's all good. The key idea here is that the mahi always needs to be done to prepare this group for each game, let alone a summer or their careers. Based on what we see with the Blackcaps and how players develop, I reckon that the coaching staff are doing an exceptional job.

Ponder this...

Boult has played 5+ Tests for eight consecutive years prior to 2021.

Southee has played 5+ Tests for nine of the past 10 years.

Wagner has played 5+ Tests for five consecutive years.

How do you win Tests? Have your best players playing most Tests. Under Donaldson, these three have been on the field consistently as seam bowlers and for Donaldson specifically, he seems to have nailed down a recipe for these blokes. Here’s a yarn from Donaldson from back n 2015 with Spike athletics…

Bit Of Spin

Spin is always rather fascinating with the Blackcaps and at this point we have come full circle for Aotearoa spinners. A couple summers ago, with five spinners on the menu and relatively similar stats across the formats, I settled on Blackcaps spinner discussion being all about personal opinion. Todd Astle is no longer in the Test frame and with Mitchell Santner back in the Test group, everyone is going to have a different angle as to who the best Test spinner is - strictly the best Test spinner from Aotearoa.

Santner's wider skillset gives him an advantage, while Ajaz Patel, Will Somerville and Ish Sodhi all have various cases for an opportunity. The doosra here are Aotearoa conditions and we're all looking forward to Blackcaps on tour vibes to see how this cluster of spinners would perform in favourable conditions ... Aotearoa's finding a bit of spin service though.

Bay Oval in Tauranga has hosted two Tests now and offers a splash of spin. In Christchurch at Hagley Park, Santner was swapped out for Daryl Mitchell as Hagley leans more towards seam and yet Kane Williamson got a couple deliveries to rip. Seddon Park in Hamilton is the other notable Aotearoa spin deck, although it's a bit too flat for my funk and Tests there a more of a graft than anywhere else. On the domestic circuit, any pitch North Island pitch from February onwards is going to be dry and the two stanzas of Plunket Shield reflect this.

Elsewhere, it's all seam for Test cricket in Aotearoa.

Here are the best spinners for Tests at Bay Oval and Hagley Park...

@ Bay Oval

Mitchell Santner: 71.3ov, 5w @ 27.20avg.

Yasir Shah: 43ov, 3w @ 44.66avg.

Jack Leach: 47ov, 2w @ 76.50avg.

@ Hagley Park

Shakib Al Hasan: 16.4ov, 4w @ 19.50avg.

Nathan Lyon: 27ov, 3w @ 34.33avg.

Ravi Jadeja: 15ov, 2w @ 23avg.

Jack Leach: 51ov, 2w @ 56.50avg.

Santner resembles a legit Test spinner at Bay Oval, while Hagley Park is best summed up by what we saw in Williamson's brief stint with the ball; undercover. Somehow, Bangladesh's Al Hasan and India's Jadeja have been effective in what are considered funky seam conditions and Australia's Lyon was solid himself. Could we see spin increase in importance at Hagley?

Oddly, in the spin-friendly conditions of Bay Oval, touring spinners have struggled. Then in the seam-friendly conditions of Hagley Park, touring spinners have done better than the kiwi spinner - who probably wasn't selected. Aotearoa is still a lovely place for seam bowlers. There is growth in what Aotearoa offers spin starting to emerge though and my hunch is that this will favour Santner as his wider skillset will allow the Blackcaps to cover their bases in Aotearoa.

Nek Tier

Sliding on from Santner and sparking up the nek-tier chat, I can see a scenario where Santner and Mitchell are in the same Blackcaps Test 11.

Sidenote: I'm not sure where Colin de Grandhomme fits in to all of this.

Last summer everything was shaken from the Blackcaps Test axis and the summer of transition and transformation chucking all sorts of different blokes up. In Santner and Matt Henry, the full circle vibes continue as they have both returned from their walkabouts. The end product of last summer is that there is a clear group of kiwi cricketers who can step into the Test arena fairly easily to cover injuries/absences and then maintain competitive energy in the group.

Will Young and Mitchell have played Test cricket. Aotearoa is fizzing to see Devon Conway play and the sneaky one is Glenn Phillips who has a Test fifty. Mitchell and Phillips have both passed 50 in Tests, Young's got a knock of 43 in his tool-kit ... Conway's a monster. Tom Blundell is right there ready to cover and later on, take over from BJ Watling.

Young, Mitchell and Conway are the three next in line. Mitchell has a First-Class batting average of 38.52 and whether it's a century in five in his past six FC seasons, or averaging 54.33 in his second season of FC cricket (2012/13); Mitchell is a very legit batsman.

Mitchell has a better FC batting and bowling record than Santner.

Mitchell: 38.52avg (bat) | 30.51avg (ball).

Santner: 28.69avg | 46.58avg.

I'm intrigued as to how this brews in the coming year or two. All the bases are covered - even the opening role where the Blackcaps have used Blundell, then Young - and there are enticing combinations on offer depending on where the openings are. Mitchell and Santner for example, would give the Blackcaps two all-round bowling options to go with Southee, Boult, Wagner and Jamieson - without losing much batting wise.

The nek tier of bowlers is Lockie Ferguson. Chur.

Henry offers depth and he is a solid plug and play option, then below that is Ferguson. Ferguson's best domestic format is FC where he averages 24.68 in 45 games and while Jamieson has making sporadic Plunket Shield appearances due to injuries over the past few years, Ferguson was destroying batting line ups in a similar fashion to Jamieson via hooping in-swingers.

Jacob Duffy is a swing option. Duffy has a career FC average of 31.80 which is fine in a large sample size of 67 games and this has been flipped into 23.62avg for 2017/18, 22.45avg for 2018/19 and 17.60avg in this current summer of FC cricket.

Most of the white ball seam depth needs to step up with the red ball to put themselves in the boil up pot here. Canterbury's Ed Nuttall is the only lefty performing at a high level right now and that's important as I don't think it's a coincidence that Aotearoa is enjoying success with a variety of bowlers - not an army of righty mediums. The nek tier doesn't require 10 options, this is more focused and any kiwi cricket fan should be rather content in knowing that Henry can do a job, then Ferguson is in a similar spot to Conway.

Summer Trends

Summer trends, not Blackcaps Test trends. When watching Blackcaps Test cricket, different players are highlighted as needing to do this or that because in their last stretch of Test innings they haven't done much. Take Henry Nicholls for example, who you would think was on the brink of the Test abyss with how he was discussed and yet Nicholls was scoring runs in different formats this summer outside of the Test group.

Of course, any player has to perform at some stage in the Test arena. There is a hefty difference between a player who is scoring runs in all formats outside of Test cricket and a player who isn't scoring Test runs (or taking wickets) while also struggling in the level below. The stats below are just red ball cricket and Nicholls was seriously on a tear prior to the Test summer starting:

In another nod to the Blackcaps environment, most of these blokes did something of note in the Plunket Shield this summer. The only woe here is Ross Taylor and the flipside to Nicholls applies here as any 'out of form' discussion with Taylor only revolved around Test cricket or Blackcaps cricket, while Taylor has been in a tough patch all summer; Taylor hit 164 runs @ 23.42avg/87.23sr in the Caribbean Premier League prior to the kiwi summer.

Taylor didn't pass 50 in 5inns of Plunket Shield cricket and didn't do much vs West Indies, before grabbing some runs vs Pakistan. Those runs in Tauranga were tough, batting with Williamson against Pakistan in what felt like a situation when Aotearoa needed Williamson and Taylor to deal with the challenge laid down by the tourists. Taylor hit 70 off 151 balls in a rather gritty knock.

Taylor had four scores between 20-45 to finish the Plunket Shield first stanza. All of which has me comfortable in seeing Taylor work through this patch - a patch every international cricketer will find themselves in. Two of Taylor's leanest years of Test cricket have been recently (2018 and 2020) though and there is a trend here to keep tabs on.

Here are the stats for those who played Plunket Shield and then Test cricket this summer.

Tom Latham

Plunket Shield: 4inns , 208 runs @ 52avg/59.25sr, 2 x 50.

vs West Indies: 2inns, 113 runs @ 56.50avg/47.67sr.

vs Pakistan: 3inns, 90 runs @ 30avg/48.38sr, 1 x 50.

BJ Watling

Plunket Shield: 6inns, 202 runs @ 40.40avg/43.53sr, 2 x 50.

vs West Indies: 1inns, 30 runs @ 30avg/58.82sr.

vs Pakistan: 3inns, 85 runs @ 28.33avg/44.73sr, 1 x 50.

Will Young

Plunket Shield: 5inns, 199 runs @ 66.33avg/62.97sr, 1 x 100

vs West Indies: 2inns, 48 runs @ 24avg/48.97sr

Henry Nicholls

Plunket Shield: 1inns, 87 run @ 87avg/60.41sr.

vs West Indies: 2inns, 181 runs @ 90.50avg/57.82sr, 1 x 100

vs Pakistan: 3inns, 224 runs @ 74.66avg/51.73sr, 1 x 100, 1 x 50.

Daryl Mitchell

Bat

Plunket Shield: 4inns, 195 runs @ 48.75avg/43.91sr, 1 x 100

vs West Indies: 2inns, 51 runs @ 25.50avg/48.57sr.

vs Pakistan: 1inns, 102 runs @ 91.07sr, 1 x 100.

Ball

Plunket Shield: 8inns, 103.4ov, 17w @ 14.23avg/2.33rpo

vs West Indies: 7ov, 1w @ 27avg/3.85rpo

vs Pakistan: 7ov @ 2rpo.

Tom Blundell

Plunket Shield: 7inns, 162 runs @ 23.14av/58.90sr, 1 x 100

vs West Indies: 2inns, 28 runs @ 14avg/34.14sr.

vs Pakistan: 3inns, 85 runs @ 28.33avg/44.73sr.

Ross Taylor

Plunket Shield: 5inns, 125 runs @ 25avg/80.64sr.

vs West Indies: 2inns, 47 runs @ 23.50avg/58.75sr.

vs Pakistan: 3inns, 94 runs @ 47avg/47.71sr, 1 x 50.

Kyle Jamieson

Plunket Shield: 5inns, 86.5ov, 20w @ 10.85avg/2.49rpo

vs West Indies: 53ov, 11w @ 13.09avg/2.71rpo.

vs Pakistan: 90.2ov, 16w @ 11.68avg/2.07rpo.

Neil Wagner

Plunket Shield: 3inns, 37ov, 7w @ 21.85avg/4.13rpo

vs West Indies: 58ov, 9w @ 20.11avg/3.12rpo.

Tim Southee

Plunket Shield: 5inns, 82ov, 14w @ 16.85avg/2.87rpo

vs West Indies - 73.4ov, 12w @ 18.75avg/3.0rpo

vs Pakistan: 92ov, 6w @ 34.66avg/2.26rpo.

Matt Henry

Plunket Shield: 38.1ov, 4w @ 15avg/1.57rpo.

vs Pakistan: 32ov @ 2.90rpo.

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Peace and love.