2021 T20 World Cup: Lockie Ferguson's Injured, Jimmy Neesham the Star and More...
Playing against Pakistan in a stadium full of Pakistani faithful was always going to be a challenging test for Aotearoa given recent events. Chuck in strange changes to the batting line up and Lockie Ferguson being ruled out of the T20 World Cup for a boil up of niggle. The Blackcaps started their T20 World Cup with a loss and next we have India on Monday morning - India also got smoked by Pakistan.
Let's start with Ferguson who injured his calf muscle and is ruled out of the tournament. I'm not going to deliver Ferguson's entire injury history, but it was only a few weeks ago that Ferguson missed Indian Premier League games due to hamstring issues. Ferguson was the most efficient kiwi bowler in the IPL and Ferguson is Aotearoa's most efficient T20I bowler, yet the best ability is availability.
Slide back further to last summer when Ferguson missed months of cricket due to a partial stress fracture, or go back to the Test series in Australia (2019) when Ferguson made his Test debut and grabbed a calf strain. Slide back to the ODI World Cup in 2019 when Ferguson missed time with a hamstring complaint. With Ferguson steaming in alongside Aotearoa's two best seamers and world-class T20 spinners, the fun Blackcaps vibe was amplified. Without Ferguson though, this bowling attack lacks weaponry.
Jimmy Neesham took Ferguson's spot in the bowling attack with 3ov @ 6rpo. Not too shabby for Neesham there and apparently the kiwis tried to get Adam Milne into their team but couldn't suss the logistics quick enough. What's weird here is that Kyle Jamieson was given both warm up games to ... warm up for this tournament and while Jamieson doesn't carry any T20 form with him into this tournament, he was the bloke selected by the Blackcaps to bowl in both warm up games.
Forget about personal opinion. The Blackcaps deemed Jamieson as worthy of warm up overs and when Ferguson is ruled out, they want to rush Milne into the team. Without Milne, it's Neesham who picks up the bowling workload and this went from 'oh it's handy to have Neesham bowling an over or two' to 'Neesham's one of the five frontline bowlers'. Chuck in Neesham batting #4 and the vibe I got from that first up loss was Aotearoa making a difficult contest even harder.
Skipper Kane Williamson highlighted the death overs as a key aspect of this loss, as well as how tricky the Sharjah pitch was to get started on. That's the low key thing about T20 cricket and all the noise about 'hitting from ball one' tends to come from those who aren't faced with that challenge. Williamson put in the hard mahi to score 25 runs @ 96.15sr and in such conditions, I vibe with allowing the best batsmen time to connect with the pitch and really good Pakistan bowling.
Neesham only batted in the Australia warm up game and smacked 31 @ 172sr in the #6 slot where he enjoyed the final stages of the innings. Swing to when things matter and Neesham is batting #4 within the first 10 overs, tasked with that tricky mahi of holding the innings together. Two really good T20 batsmen in Devon Conway (who does his best mahi opening) and Glenn Phillips then drop down the order. In tough conditions, my vibe is to give Conway and Phillips as much time as possible knowing that Neesham's there to smack boundaries afterwards.
I wrote this about Neesham prior to the tournament. Everything there was predicated on Neesham bowling an over or two and finishing innings' with the bat. That's what Neesham usually does in T20 leagues and for Blackcaps, yet for a really hostile contest Neesham batted #4 and bowled 3 overs with the final over looming. Just a bit weird.
Daryl Mitchell opened the batting and again, Mitchell only opened in the Australia warm up game while Tim Seifert opened vs England. I'm fairly high on Mitchell's batting and reckon he should be a 1st 11 player in this tournament, I kinda like him as an opener even. The method to land on Mitchell opening game tahi was just a bit weird. Mitchell finished with 27 runs as the only kiwi batsman to score with a strike-rate over 120 (135sr). This was actually super aligned with Mitchell's T20 mahi...
With Mitchell opening, Seifert plays as a finisher - who can't slug boundaries.
In two different roles against England and Pakistan, Seifert scored 8 runs @ 100sr. I wrote this about Seifert's lack of quick runs prior to the Caribbean Premier League and Seifert then put up 22avg/113sr in this year's CPL. Seifert played one Indian Premier League game and batting down the order, Seifert scored 2 runs @ 50sr before he was run-out.
Seifert loved beating up West Indies and Pakistan last summer in Aotearoa. Yet in the last two CPL tournaments, as well as the Super Smash and then against Australia (when he opened before moving down the order) Seifert has shown none of his attacking funk that has been kinda captivating in recent years.
There is an easy alternative. Give Devon Conway the wicket-keeping gloves and put him up as opener, bump Mitchell down to the middle order with Neesham and replace Seifert with a straight up bowler or Mark Chapman. Ideally, Seifert explodes with runs. This Seifert trend has been brewing for a while now though and a must-win game against an eager Indian outfit in tough conditions doesn't feel conducive to finding long lost form.
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Peace and love.