The Blackcaps’ ODI Wicket-Keeper/Batsman Situation Is Even Worse Than You Realise
It was a fullish one on leg stump from Wayne Parnell and Tom Latham whipped it right to square leg. He’d worked a ball through midwicket two deliveries earlier to get off the mark but this time he happened to pick out the fielder and offered up a simple catch to Andile Phehlukwayo. What they call in the business a ‘soft dismissal’. Gone for 2 from 6 deliveries in the fourth over.
It’s only one innings but it means that in his last four games now, Tom Latham has yet to get to double figures with the bat. Scores of 7, 0, 0 and 2. Those innings all came against Australia and South Africa, facing the new ball as an opener and on three occasions doing so without his usual comrade in Martin Guptill. Lots of variables there that can affect a dude’s performance…
GOT HIM! Phehlukwayo takes the catch at square-leg. Latham departs, removed by Parnell. NZ 13/1 (3.3 ovs) #ProteaFire #NZvSA pic.twitter.com/pdvqhpI324
— Cricket South Africa (@OfficialCSA) February 21, 2017
Still, four innings in a row without even scoring 10 combined runs and as an opener too! If he hadn’t scored a career high 137 against Bangladesh a few months ago then that’s the kind of form that gets a sucker dropped. In comparison, 9 runs is the lowest score that Kane Williamson has managed in his last 14 ODI innings and in his entire career he’s never gone four straight innings with an aggregate of less than 52 runs. A cruel comparison because obviously that’s Prince Kane we’re talking about, but you might as well compare yourself to the best. 52 runs in four innings, those were the last four games of the 2015 World Cup and he followed them by passing fifty in six of his immediate next seven ODIs – the one failure being a 45 in England.
This is some recent trash from Latham but he remains a proven quantity (ODI average of 31.02 which is average, Test average of 40.37 which is great for a kiwi opener), no reason to panic just yet. Anyway, there’s maybe another distraction that could be affecting things… these last four games he’s also been picked as the wicket-keeper.
Latham isn’t much more than a part-time keeper at international level but then B.J. Watling wasn’t a full-timer either before he got targeted for the Test role. He got working on things and now he’s the numero uno with the gloves and has been for a few years. Not exactly the world’s premier gloveman but there are no complaints from here about his work behind the stumps – plus most teams these days seem to prefer a trade-off in fielding for the extra batting.
The kiwi ODI team must have been scouting because they’re looking to do the same thing. Luke Ronchi has been the first choice WK for several years but at 35 years old and with a deceptively terrible batting record, you can understand the Blackcaps looking at some other options. Tom Blundell is a youngster in the Wellington team who’s been picked in a couple ODI squads without playing, while B.J. Watling has had a few call-ups himself. Then there’s Latham, with some existing wicket-keeping experience and a mostly assured spot in the batting line-up already. Ronchi is clearly the best fielder of the contenders but Latham is the best batsman. Just imagine if you weren’t saving a spot in the middle order for the keeper because Latham’s doing it from the opening position, giving you all sorts of selection freedom. An extra batsman? A second spinner? Another half ‘n’ half all-rounder? Mate, take your pick.
So Tom Latham took the gloves against the Aussies and he kept those stumps bloody well, taking his catches and even picking up a couple of stumpings in the process. There has been the odd moment of clumsiness, particularly in those situations which you only really know through experience (like the South Africans sneaking late-over byes on him every ball), but on the whole he’s done fine. The problem is he’s not holding up the other end of the bargain as an opener.
You can’t blame it on tiredness either because he’s batted first in each of his four innings. Also in the past he’s kept wicket in three other ODIs (two in the West Indies in 2012 and one in Bangladesh in 2013) and each of those were second innings efforts where he scored 32, 11 and then a duck in the third (the BAN game). Not really worth considering those, to be fair, not with where he was in his career or with him batting at either six or seven as well. But it does mean that of his four ODI ducks, three have come while keeping. An average of 7.42 in the seven games he’s been WK for. Perhaps there’s a mental balance that he hasn’t struck yet. Perhaps he’s spending too much time working on his keeping and not enough in the nets. Most likely it’s just a coincidence and he’ll probably ton up next time he bats.
Except… this is not a new drama. The reason that Ronchi’s spot is slipping out of his otherwise assured hands is that he’s been bloody abysmal with the bat himself. There’s no use to having a guy come in at seven when he gets out for single figures time after time after time. Ronchi has an average of 23.64 in ODIs, which is on the lower end of ‘barely acceptable’ for where he bats. Some of those runs came in the four games he played for Australia in 2008 though, so his average with the NZers drops to 23.06, the canary yellows hogging one of his four scores of 50+ in ODIs. Take out that one magnificent 170* and you don’t even wanna know.
Because the thing with Ronchi is that he’s done nothing since scoring that incredible century. He has more scores of 0 or 1 since then (7) than he has scores of 20+ (6). His batting contribution hasn’t been bad – it’s been horrific. At the World Cup that his 170* came in preparation for, Ronchi went and scored 73 runs at 12.16 in seven innings. He got a duck in the final. His average outside of New Zealand is 12.95. His average in 2016 was 14.90. His average under Kane Williamson’s captaincy is 17.86. The one positive here is that when he does score runs he scores them quickly but nah, there’s no justifying those numbers.
Midway through the 2016 series in India, Ronchi found himself out of the side. The run drought had gotten to be too much even for the veteran-lovin’ selectors and with the ‘Caps down 2-1 in the best of five contest, in came B.J. Watling for his first ODIs for three and a half years. He scored 14 in the fourth game and got a duck in the decider as NZ were bowled out for 79. But the selectors stuck with him at Ronchi’s expense when they named the Hadlee-Chappell side for the next limited overs tour.
Gavin Larsen: “Luke remains on our radar, but we felt we wanted to give BJ Watling further ODI experience - Luke knows he was a bit shy of runs across the last year or so.”
No bloody kidding, bro. Problem was that Watling put up totals of 6, 17 and 8 in his three attempts, struggling to turn the strike over in the middle order and probably ending his chances in that format for the foreseeable future. This was about when Blundell started getting picked though despite the lad having a few impressive showings as Wellington won the T20 Super Smash and would later make the final of the Ford Trophy, all he got was one T20 international against Bangladesh in which he didn’t bat and that was after Luke Ronchi had injured himself. Ronchi Kong who had already returned to the 50 over side with scores of 5 and, blessedly, 35 against the Tigers.
Ronchi has batted terribly, Latham has been rubbish since he took the gloves and Watling didn’t do much better in the middle. It’s not one guy slipping up here, it’s everyone. We’ve seen New Zealand use their keepers as openers and in the middle to lower order over the last couple years but there’s been no improvement. Here, take a look at something we prepared earlier:
The start of the World Cup is a mostly arbitrary diving off point but it does come after Ronchi’s big hundy and it sort of heralded in a different era for this team so we may as well go with it. That’s 25 months of cricket too so it’s not an unfair or unrepresentative selection of time. That’s 25 months without a wicket-keeper passing 50… without passing 40 even! Six ducks in 36 innings, one in six. 25 scores in single figures (and none of them not-outs either). If you’re averaging a shade over 10 with the bat then buddy you’d better be taking trucks of wickets (like Trent Boult, batting average in ODIs of 14.00). In 2017, teams simply can’t afford to carry a wicket keeper who can’t bat any longer. Hell, that’s been true since Adam Gilchrist, even.
To put that into added perspective, over the exact same period of time, here are the comparative stats of our wicket keepers against those of our various number 11 batsmen and also Tim Southee, our national lightning rod of batting angst. But he’s too reckless! He doesn’t value his wicket! He’s just a filthy slogger! Well guess what…
| INNS | RUNS | H/S | Ducks | AVE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Designated Wicket-Keepers | 36 | 348 | 37* | 6 | 10.24 |
| Number 11 Batsmen | 18 | 48 | 16* | 2 | 6.86 |
| Tim Southee | 19 | 192 | 55 | 4 | 14.77 |
Hahaha, yikes.
What’s the answer then? The answer is that Tom Latham starts scoring runs. If he doesn’t then it could be that a fella like Glenn Phillips wanders on into the ODI team to try thump a few boundaries, either as an opener or lower down the order. Tom Blundell has multiple fifties in both Plunket Shield and Super Smash cricket this season (though a top score of 41 in the one-dayers). Tim Seifert and Cam Fletcher can both wield the gloves ably with Seifert also carrying some potential as a batsman.
But realistically they’re gonna give Latham more time to figure things out and that’s the right thing to do. You don’t give a big responsibility to a guy and then rip it away from him when he isn’t immediately successful – you’ve gotta show some faith in your own decision making too. Latham is easily good enough to both open and keep and you only have to look as far as his current nemesis Quentin de Kock to see that it’s possible. Like, Tommy’s not being wedged in there for the sake of it – he had already earned his spot as an opener completely separately to the keeping thing. Just a matter of getting a couple scores on the board and ending what already feels like a cursed position. Otherwise we’ll have to call in the exorcist, sorry guys.