The Blackcaps Didn't Pick Their Team On Form and You Know What Happened, Part 1
There’s always a bit of debate with national team selections, it’s all part of the fun. But the Blackcaps over the last twelve months or so it feels like everyone’s had something to moan about. If it wasn’t the dismal wicket-keeping situation then it was the all-rounder rotation. Or maybe it was the way their spinners were picked and deployed. Perhaps the opening bat besides Guptill, a wound that bled into the wicket-keeping one. Or how about the overreliance on recalling older players instead of preparing young players for the future? Just recently we’ve also added a middle order crisis to the mix, hooray.
Well, after the borderline tragedy that was their Champions Trophy campaign that’s all pretty sharply in focus right now. Maybe if it hadn’t rained against Australia then it could’ve turned out different. A great first innings anchored by a Kane Williamson century had them in a strong position when showers set in, although with Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell at the crease (and considering what happened against Bangladesh) it’s best not to jump to any conclusions there.
A comfortable defeat against England was then followed by a terrible loss to Bangladesh. Hey, the Bangas are a really strong side these days and New Zealand are well aware of that. But you have them 33/4 chasing 266 then you probably don’t bank on the next two lads scoring match-winning tons to take the game away from you in a must-win. It’d almost be funny if we hadn’t spent so long preparing this team to crumble at this bloody tournament.
Tournament cricket is a tricky thing. You’re playing different teams on short turnarounds and usually on uncommon ground. As often as Kane Williamson had to fend of unfavourable comparisons between the English wind, rain and cold to Aotearoa’s natural elements, cricket in England ain’t the same as cricket in New Zealand. The white duke tends not to swing too much and Duckworth & Lewis have been more influential than de Villiers & Smith.
Like Shakib and Mahmudullah though, sometimes all you need to do well at these tournaments, especially a smaller one like the Champions Trophy, is for a few dudes to really catch fire. If you’re able to pick a team where most guys are hitting form then, mate, you might just win the damn thing. Look at England for example, they lost their best ODI bowler in Chris Woakes (subjective statement, sure) through injury and they swapped him out for Adil Rashid… who has been great. Never better than with his four-for against the Aussies. There was criticism when they left him out against Bangladesh in the first place but coming back in like he did was still a happy fluke of selection. They dominated their group stage and that was with Jason Roy a walking wicket at the top. Yet they can afford to show faith in him while others are performing - unlike with the kiwis he's the only one.
Form is fickle, it comes and it goes. Sometimes in the space of a single delivery. That doesn’t mean you can’t put players in the best position to succeed though, that you can’t protect the blokes that are struggling and reward the ones who’ve been tearing it up lately. The Blackcaps didn’t do that at all. They tried to hit this Champions Trophy up relying on players who’d been there in the past and they weren’t able to get it done in the present (except for the divine Kane Williamson and a few flashes from Ross Taylor and Tim Southee).
The first sign was with the squad that was picked. After supposedly spending the ODI summer preparing for the Champions Trophy they went on ahead and picked three lads out of the IPL who had barely played for the Blackcaps all year. Mitch McClenaghan, Adam Milne and Corey Anderson. All three had suffered from long-term injuries, Anderson had been able to play as a batsman a few times but now he was picked properly as a full all-rounder again. In a 15-man squad, that’s a risk in itself picking all three. Sure, they’d done it before. Sure, they were all back to something resembling full fitness. But they hadn’t been playing a lot of international cricket lately, had they?
In the year preceding the Champions Trophy, the Blackcaps played 27 different players. No surprises that Kane Williamson completely dominates the run scoring in that time. 939 runs at an average of 46.95, that’s about what you’d expect from him and he was the best performer at the CT with that lovely ton against Aussie and a couple halfies against the other two. Ross Taylor follows closely behind him averaging 45.82 in a couple less innings. He was the next best kiwi batsman at the CT. Sweet as so far. Next up in the ranks? That’d be Tom Latham.
Blackcaps Top Ten ODI Run Scorers from June 2016 to June 2017
Tommy spent most of that time as the opener besides Martin Guptill but struggled once he was asked to juggle his bat and the keeping gloves against Australia and South Africa (batting without Guppy in most of those games, by the way). That might have just been a coincidence, we never did get to find out. Latham responded with a hundred and two fiddies in the tri-series warm-ups (as captain) yet when it came down to it Luke Ronchi took his opening spot for the Champs Trophy, Ronchi Kong having not opened for New Zealand for four years apart from a score of 1 (4 balls) against South Africa at Centurion one time. Ronchi who had a top score of 37* going back to the World Cup, until he knocked 65 off 43 against Australia in the first game (followed by a golden duck against England).
If the tri-series was a head to head between Latham and Ronchi then his 101 runs (average of 25.25, strike rate of 113.5) really doesn’t compare to Latham’s 257 runs (average of 64.25, strike rate of 88.0). But then if it was a head to head then Ronchi wouldn’t have kept wicket in all four games when Latham was the only alternative. In-house it could have been a different story, both Ronchi and Latham struggled with minor injuries in the prequels, but what it looked like from here was they edged Latham out because they felt they had to fit Ronchi in and his aggressive approach sort of imitated Brendon McCullum’s old way of doing things.
That last point makes this trend even more damning, really. Think back to how good the Blackcaps were at that 2015 World Cup, now look at the team that’s been picked here. It’s not hard to see Ronchi as an ersatz McCullum, or Broom as an off-brand Grant Elliott. Jimmy Neesham swinging the bat like Luke Ronchi, Milne filling in the role he was picked for at the 2015 tournament. Except that, with the exception of Neesham, who’s hardly a like for like there (more a luxury of having a keeper open the batting), they’re all worse. Mitch Santner is worse than Dan Vettori too. Corey Anderson is a shadow of the player he was then, Tim Southee hasn’t been the same either.
(Side note: nobody gave a goddamn about strike rates as a relevant, top tier ODI stat until T20s came along. More runs are still way better than fast runs and if you’re considering strike rates on par with averages then please take a running jump into some place cold because you’re burning up there, mate).
Although it’s fair to say you can overestimate the value of warm up tour runs, as is clear in the case of Neil Broom. His stats over the last twelve months are easily enough to justify his place in the team, 602 runs at a 43.00 ave. Fantastic stuff for a guy who didn’t even appear to be on the ODI radar at all until the summer. However Broom was one of those veteran recalls and his numbers deserve a slightly deeper look. Playing in place of Ross Taylor, who was having his eye fixed at the time, Broomy tonned up against the Bangas at home and chased it with a 97. There was a superb 73 against Australia at Eden Park but then he scored 12 runs in four innings against Australia and South Africa. Hey but he was back in form for the tri-series, scoring 79, 48, 38 and 63 against Bangladesh and Ireland. Thing is, well… this:
Neil Broom vs Bangladesh & Ireland:
11 INN | 581 RUNS | 58.10 AVE | 1 100s | 4 50s
Neil Broom vs Everybody Else:
26 INNS | 354 RUNS | 15.39 AVE | 0 100s | 1 50s
Broom as a solid hand in the middle order is fine in theory but not when he’s yet another example of an erratic performer in this XI – unchanged in all three games by the way. Since they didn’t exactly go out of their way to try many other options it’s hard to say who else might have gone good there. Hank Nicholls scored 3 in the only ODI he played in the last year. George Worker didn’t quite light a fire in the tri-series (by which time it was too late anyway). Colin Munro had 12 games to win the selectors over and he passed fifty once while putting up numbers that look remarkably similar to Ronchi’s. Dean Brownlie was at a similar standing to Broom in the summer and it was Broom who swept him away (obligatory Broom pun, everybody does it). That’s picking the form dude, right? Can’t help but wonder how Tom Latham woulda gone at five, though. Nothing close to a perfect fit there but… yeah. There are plenty more contenders coming through too, with the likes of Will Young, Glenn Phillips and Tom Bruce all out there waiting impatiently. Tom Blundell probably heads the list of WKs.
Martin Guptill’s underperformance shows that even your best players can have their off days. Unfortunately it takes more than two decent batsmen to win you cricket games. Ten wickets also helps. If you happen to have dudes that can score runs and take wickets then boom. Which brings us to the all-rounders…
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