Cricket: First XI of great hits and misses

My first XI of quick-hit cricket thoughts as stumps are pulled on a strange old summer.

1. Test cricket, eh. You can try to kill it, but you can’t beat it. Can’t think of another sport where the very act of denial, like Neil Wagner’s 103-ball seven, can be so thrilling. Twenty days of Wagner per summer is nowhere near enough.

2. About the only thing I can remember with any clarity from the corresponding series five years ago, is New Zealand, with Kane Williamson’s bowling to the fore, pressing for victory on the final day of the test series, only to be denied by Matt Prior and Monty Panesar.

Fast forward five years and I can say with confidence the only thing there’s a chance I’ll remember outside this test series is Ross Taylor’s one-legged ODI century. That’s the power of the longest and greatest form of the game.

3. Williamson is the most even-keeled sportsman I have met. Sometimes it feels like he is going to absurd lengths to utter the most benign commentary on the game, but having sat down with him to help him write a “How To” book for kids (Cricket with Kane Williamson, available in all good book stores), I quickly understood that is how he operates.

He doesn’t throw out bon mots and hot takes because he doesn’t see the game as a series of flashpoints as much as an ongoing process of betterment. It is not his job to fill column inches or provide soundbites, but it is his job to score runs and lead his side adroitly.

So take it as read that he is really hot under the collar when he says: “We’ve played four tests this year, I think there’s a little bit of frustration, guys want to play more test cricket … the team loves playing test cricket.” For Williamson, that’s almost a call to arms.

4. New Zealand’s window of test strength is closing, but not alarmingly so. The average age of the 12 players used by New Zealand in this two-match series was 29, with Taylor the oldest at 34 and Ish Sodhi the youngest at 25.

That in itself is not concerning, but the lack of promising batsmen behind them at first-class level is. With one round of the Plunket Shield to go, four of the top five run scorers were so far from the national selectors’ radars they didn’t register a blip: Michael Papps, age 38, Greg Hay, 33, Luke Woodcock, 36, and Jesse Ryder, 33. Only Tim Seifert, 23, has potentially a lot of international cricket in front of him.

Indications are Taylor could call it quits after the World Cup next year. Jeet Raval ended the summer looking like he was being operated by remote control. There are opportunities there for someone good enough and hungry enough.

5. Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Wagner: Are they New Zealand’s greatest three-pronged pace attack? Discuss at your leisure, but for consistency, longevity and contrasting yet complementary skills, I haven’t seen a better trio.

6. It must be frustrating waiting in line. As opposed to the wafer thin batting and spin bowling stocks, New Zealand has genuine pace bowling options. The ever-unlucky Matt Henry has Doug Bracewell, Lockie Ferguson and probably Scott Kuggeleijn for company as those who could do a fine job at the highest level.

7. Sodhi needs to develop a stock ball capable of getting good players out if he is to succeed at test level in New Zealand conditions. His leggie hasn’t enough on it to trouble good players, so they can sit on his variations and pick off his bad balls.

8. For a guy with such a simple approach to cricket and with such an uncomplicated batting and bowling technique, Colin de Grandhomme comes close to defying explanation. He scored 105, 58, 22, 29, 72 and 45 on his six trips to the crease this summer. He was New Zealand’s most consistent batsman. He chipped in with four wickets each against the West Indies and England.

9. Remember Tom Blundell?

10. There has been a lot of talk about behaviour of the Australians, including from the general direction of, um, me. New Zealand, on the other hand, are international cricket’s white knights, winning admirers and the odd game to boot with an almost Corinthian approach.

This is a good thing, but NZ Cricket would do well to remind those at the level below of that. Some of the behaviour during the domestic season has been appalling. There have been too many teapots and bat smashes and general malingering at the crease from batsmen given out.

11. Hate to say it, but the next 12 months are going to be long for cricket fans. We’re faced with another inexplicable winter of inactivity, followed by a series against Pakistan in the atmosphere-free UAE, then a home summer of five tests against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Don’t be surprised if some smart aleck prunes a test off the Bangers and converts it to ODIs with a World Cup looming. Memories, like the ones we gathered on Tuesday, will be harder to catch than water.