Blackcaps vs Bangladesh: Test Series Stats
BLACKCAPS BATSMEN
Leading the show, Tom Latham was bloody brilliant here scoring 177, 16, 68 and 41* on his way to a series average in the triple figures. The 531 balls that he faced at the crease were well beyond anyone else from either team, Shakib next with 366. Interestingly next on the list for NZ was Henry Nicholls with 294 red ones coming his way. The strike rate was more than comfortable for an opener such as Latham and the 177 he bagged in the first test – which was under as much pressure as the kiwi batsmen faced in either test having to respond to a near-600 run deficit – is his best in tests and there aren’t too many kiwis who’ve gotten to 2000 runs quicker either. Tommy made it happen in his 52nd innings (the Blackcaps record is 44 by Andrew Jones).
And Latham was ably assisted by more than a couple teammates with five NZers averaging over 50 against the Tigers. One of those was Mitchell Santner whose 73 in T1 gives him a new test best as well. Only batted the twice, did Mitch… which was more prominent than his bowling but that’s a story for another section. Lovely to see Ross Taylor in the runs as well even if he blew a couple of chances to tie Martin Crowe’s record 17 centuries for NZ. He definitely had the eye in, no pun intended, clicking over at a strike rate of 76.62 while not being dismissed for under 40 in his three goes. Plus he topped 6000 career runs along the way (and passed 10,000 balls faced if you care about that stuff). Stephen Fleming (7172 runs) and Brendon McCullum (6453) and the only fellas still ahead of Taylor and his 6015 and counting.
Be careful of this Williamson lad fast encroaching though. He’s up to 4807 and rising fast, having used this series to correct a significant imbalance in the world by getting his career average back above 50. Added a 15th test ton as well, Henry Nicholls graciously ignoring Prince Kane’s crease-bound humility with a smooth 4 from 10 balls to allow Williamson to get to triple-figs within the remaining runs required. The second test saw Kane dismissed for 2 in his only knock. Thanks to that 104* from 90 balls, his series strike rate was over a run a ball.
And thus we come to Hank. The Cantabrian has been under some scrutiny lately for that number five slot and he responded with a very fine 98 in T2, the only negative being that he kinda threw away a maiden test ton in the process, chopping on from Mehedi. He also scored 53 in his other full innings, adding 142 for the fourth wicket with Rosso. A century would have been nice but he at least doubled his tally of fifties.
Things weren’t so swell for CDG, who was twice out cheaply before getting the nod to come in and pummel the last few runs in the second test, trying to make sure they got it done so we didn’t have to come back the next day. Weird thing about Colin de Granhomme’s series is that of those 47 runs, 30 of them came via sixes. He was the only kiwi to score a duck (Bangladesh had five of them) and given that his bowling wasn’t exactly hot either, he might find his place under threat now. For reference, Neil Wagner faced more than twice as many deliveries as Colin did (for fewer runs, granted).
Also struggling was a fellow who made his debut in the same game as CDG a few months ago: Jeet Raval. Can’t blame him for shelling catches when it seemed to be contagious among everyone but his opening bat is where the lad shines and in four innings his best effort was 33. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds as he didn’t nick out first over or anything – he lasted at least half an hour in all four goes – but you’d hope he could carry at least one of those on into a relevant score. All the same, his place seems pretty safe.
Nobody really cares what the tail-enders do, especially when the top order are in the runs. As for BJ Watling though… could have done better. He was another, like Santner, who only got to bat twice but Watling failed to cash in. He completely buggered up in getting out for 49 caught behind the wicket in the first test, trying to smash-pull a long hop from Mahmudullah’s part-time spin. It was given out on referral.
Watling’s a tricky one coz his style and his position in the order mean he has to battle hard for his runs and he did that here, finally getting some time in the middle - 106 balls of time. But he got complacent early in his next bat, chopping on for 1. He’s breaking records with the gloves alright but given a chance in the ODI team for the Hadlee-Chappells he didn’t take and having now gone nine tests and 13 innings without passing fifty, there’s talk about his place in the test team too. Dropping Watters would be way out of character for the NZ selectors so he should be all good, it’s just a matter of finally getting some runs on the board. Apart from a hundred and a not-out 83 in Zimbabwe, that batting drought stretches back to a single fifty since May 2015. The last tour to England was a good one for him, scoring 254 runs in two tests. The matches since… not so much. An average of 33.32 and that’s with the games in Zimbabwe. Take those out and it drops to 25.86.
BANGLADESH BATSMEN
Well the first thing you notice here is that Bangladesh managed to use 15 different players in a two-match test series. Four changes from the first test in Wellington, only one of those was a tactical thing with Subashis left out following some only half decent pace bowling which we’ll come back to. Mushfiqur Rahim, Mominul Haque and Imrul Kayes were all injured (Mushfiqur most notably, he was taken to hospital in the second innings of the first test after getting hit on the helmet by a bouncer). Mustafizur Rahman was also unavailable with injury, leaving them with only 13 fit players to choose from within their touring squad.
What that meant was that Soumya Sarkar came in, along with Nurul Hasan, Nazmul Hossain Shanto and Rubel Hossain, and that was pretty telling for a team that are a little stretched for depth at the top level. Soumyar had never opened in test matches before and his opening partner Tamim, while an established veteran in the side, also had the extra responsibility of the captaincy – something he’d never done before either.
Gotta start with the positives and looking at that chart you see one man stand way out above the others and that’s Mushfiqur. His superb 159 in the first innings, along with Skakib’s 217 (the new highest ever score by a Bangladeshi), helped set up that monster 595/8d that they managed in the first innings of the first test. 23 fours and a six he hit in that knock, batting for over six hours. He was one of the few offering any resistance in the second innings as well before he got hit and the tail-order crumbled beneath him. Unfortunately his injury, while thankfully not as bad as it could have been, meant that he missed the second test and with that broke a streak of consecutive test matches that goes back something close to a decade. The poor fella couldn’t seem to go two days without getting injured on this tour.
And Shakib, what an innings that was too. Eventually he tired and chopped one onto his stumps against Wagner (only ten minutes shy of stumps on day two as well, guts), but only after 276 deliveries and 418 minutes at the crease. His fourth test century and along the way he passed 3000 test runs (at an average of 40.67). He then chased that stunner with a duck in the second innings which made him only the seventh player in test history to get a double ton and a duck in the same test (Dudley Nourse, Imtiaz Ahmed, Seymour Nurse, Viv Richards, Ricky Ponting & Shoaib Malik).
Shakib also smacked a 50 in the second test and then fell cheaply for 8 in the next innings. But that was a pattern for the whole team: 595/8d in the first innings and then 160 all out (including one retired hurt). 289 all out and then 173 all out. They fared pretty terribly in their second innings as a team both times – Sabir Rahman’s 50 in test #1 was their top score in either back frame.
By the way, Bangladesh’s 595 in the first innings is now the test record for the highest first innings score in a losing effort – beating a mark that had stood since 1894-95 in a timeless test. The 435 run difference between their first and second innings is the seventh most ever and Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim’s 359 run partnership is the second biggest in a lost test, the fourth biggest fifth wicket partnership ever, the fourth biggest for any wicket against New Zealand by anyone and the third biggest ever in New Zealand.
Soumya’s opening stint actually went quite well, highlighted by a busy 86 in the first innings – the 23 year old’s highest test score in his fourth match. He got a couple solid starts in the T20 series as well, plus he bowls some handy medium pace as a backup option, which we only saw briefly as he rolled the arm over for three overs in NZ’s first innings. Can’t say too much about his opening partner Tamim, however. It started nicely with a 56 but that was about it. His next three times at the crease provided for 25, 5 & 8. He had a shocker in the Christchurch test, not the way he’ll want to remember his first gig as test captain. Not for a guy who’d averaged 60.60 across his last nine test matches before this series. Dropped his career average back under 40 as well.
Similarly Mahmudullah was a big disappointment for the visitors. 88 runs in four attempts and it was only that much because of a 38 in his last bat. His test record’s not great anyway (average barely above 30) but as a senior dude he needed to step up in this series with other players hurt and if you cast your mind back to 2010, Mahmudullah did score his lone test century against the Blackcaps in New Zealand (115 at Hamilton – against one of the weirder kiwi teams in recent memory).
Mominul batted pretty well in the first test but wasn’t fit enough for the second with a rib injury and neither Nazmul nor Nurul offered enough in the second as replacements. Nurul got a second ball duck in his second innings, caught behind off of Wagner. Sabbir Rahman showed a bit of promise with 111 runs across the series, including two fifties. He and Shakib were the only two Bangladeshis to pass fifty twice… although it was only a two test contest.
BLACKCAPS BOWLERS
Prince Kane sent three overs down in the first innings of the first test. He wouldn’t be required again. In fact in T2 the NZers would only use the four bowlers in total, Mitch Santner left to fend for himself as a specialist batsman in the middle order – at least they let him bat at six (which is an underrated captaincy move from Williamson, keeping him involved – same goes for giving CDG the chance to finish the test off in the fourth innings). Santner didn’t have any success in the 595 innings, though he did pick up two wickets and a run out in the next effort – two big wickets as well, Tamim and Shakib. And he kept the economy rate down, the only regular in either team with an RPO under 3.00.
CDG’s bowling might be best breezed over. 1/150 all up, his average more than ten times worse in this series than in the Pakistan series (9 wickets @ 12.22). He’s the fourth seamer, there to keep things tight and to a degree he did that at an RPO of 3.33. You’d imagine a strike rate better than a wicket every 270 deliveries would have been in the plans though.
Then again, the frontline trio were hogging them all. 33 of the 40 available wickets snapped up by Southee, Boult and Wagner with three of them unclaimed (and a run out). Southee and Boult were on form in Christchurch, taking 15 between them at Hagley Oval. When your new ball bowlers are doing that, an eight wicket win sounds about right. This was the fourth time that New Zealand has had three bowlers take ten wickets each in a two-match series. Also notice how ridiculously similar the over totals were for the three of them – all within four balls of each other.
Timmy’s 5/94 there in the first innings was the only five-for in the series and the sixth of his career. After 27 wickets in 2016 meant his lowest yearly tally since 2012, he’s already got 11 scalps in 2017. Slowly getting that average back below 30 where it belongs as well. Best of all is that he passed 200 test wickets in the process. Richard Hadlee is obviously way out on top with 431 and Danny Vettori next with 361 but Chris Martin’s 233 and Chris Cairns’ 218 are well within his sights now. Southee becomes the second fastest kiwi to 200 wickets in terms of tests played (56) although Trent Boult is well on his way to beating that (185 in 49 matches).
Good old Boulty. 12 wickets made him the top taker in the series, he got at least two in every single innings. Now that’s consistency (granted he had to work for his 2/131 in the firstie). He got taken to a time or two which affected the RPO slightly (Southee too) but, with a series-best strike rate of 44.4, there was no keeping him down.
Something you can also say about Neil Wagner, in fact it’s kind of his thing. 10 wickets from 89 hard-toiled overs. Going back to the start of 2016, Wagner has taken 51 wickets at an average of 22.33. He’s got a well-earned reputation as a guy who’ll bowl the tough overs but looking at his recent record, he’s arguably NZ’s best strike bowler on form as well.
BANGLADESH BOWLERS
Not such pleasant reading over this way. Shakib and Kamrul were the top wicket takers with six each, neither with especially great averages although Shakib did get down to business with 4/50 in Christchurch, one wicket shy of becoming only the second Bangladeshi to take five-for in Aotearoa. As it happens, the lone man in that club is Rubel Hossain who saw a small workload on this whole tour considering his talent. He only played the second test and he only bowled 17 overs, probably because his test record is horrific compared to a strong enough limited overs career. A test average of 77.93 after 24 matches, yeah. Safe to say he’s better than that… although he only added to the number by going wicketless here in NZ (to save being too harsh on the bloke, he did take seven wickets in the T20 series).
After having to wait way too long for his test debut, Taskin Ahmed can’t say he took advantage of his chance. 62 overs for only two wickets at an RPO of 4.61. He got something close to smashed. His first wicket was a beauty to remove Kane Williamson off the edge, though. Something to remember fondly.
As for the bolter who destroyed England, 19 year old Mehedi Hasan had figures of 0/116, 2/66, 2/59 and 0/27 in this series. All combined for 4/286… a long way removed from the 19/297 that he did for the Poms with last October/November in his debut series. Not that he did himself poorly here, carrying the biggest workload of any of his teammates and even opening the bowling in every innings.
One notable thing is that while the over totals were close enough to be comparable (347.1 overs for NZ and 300.2 for BAN), the Bangladeshis were only able to wrangle 33 maiden overs against the kiwis and their 65 blankers. Naturally you can see that in the run rates as well. Maybe they shoulda bowled Mahmudullah a few more times? He does have a test match five-for under his belt and his lone spell saw him dismiss both BJ Watling and Tim Southee with what Cricinfo refers to as his ‘tidy off-spin’.
Subashis did okay for 2/89 in his first chance though didn’t seem to be a favoured option. Kamrul Islam Rabbi, on the other hand, was probably the pick of the bowlers as he took three wickets in each test and was able to get a few batsmen to play the odd false shot. On the whole, pace wasn’t much of a threat for Bangladesh. Guys like Kamrul are a bit too used to bowling in flat conditions and while there’s potential amongst the seamers there, it was notable that Mehedi was continually taking the new ball ahead of most of them.
There was a run out but only taking 24 out of 40 wickets in a series doesn’t exactly help you win and after the bowlers were given a huge platform to start the series with, they allowed NZ to score 539 runs and eventually chase down the win with ease. The batsmen almost all failed in the second innings of that Wellington test too but momentum switched as the bowling attack let NZ get away. Fair to say it was a little too easy for the kiwis with the bat.
Let’s be honest and say the weather might have played some part as well.