Insurance at a premium

By Aiden McLaughlin

A move away from the tried and tested four-pronged seam attack wasn’t expected in the build-up to the second Test at the Basin Reserve, but when the teams were announced, the logic was, for many, understandable.

For a while, the perception has been that if Will Young was to regain a place in the team, it would be at the expense of the out-of-sorts Henry Nicholls – few thought that Young’s inclusion would actually be alongside Nicholls in the middle-order.

It’s well known that the Blackcaps selectors are fans of the tried and tested – loyal, conservative – if you have performances in the bank, you’ll be forgiven for a poor run of form, and backed to come right again. When results were going well, those dips were less obvious and certainly weren’t examined in such depth by the majority of fans and observers.

But now that the team are on a downward trend, the gaps are more evident and the selectors have decided to twist their approach. On reflection, it was understandable. At Bay Oval, the runs scored by the top seven batsmen for New Zealand were as follows:

Latham: 1 & 15

Conway: 77 & 2

Williamson: 6 & 0

Nicholls: 4 & 7

Mitchell: 0 & 57

Blundell: 138 & 1

Bracewell: 7 & 25

One century, two fifties, two ducks and eight single-digit scores. Yes, both innings started when conditions were most favourable for the English bowlers, under the lights, with the pink ball – and Anderson, Broad and Robinson all bowled well –  but it’s back to traditional Test match conditions at the Basin and despite their strong record in Wellington, Gary Stead and Tim Southee opted for the extra insurance via Young at number four.

In just over a session of play on day two, it didn’t work. After a English declaration at 435-8 gave the home side seven overs to see out before lunch, England’s bowlers made early inroads, taking the wickets of Conway for 0 and Williamson for 4. In the afternoon session, the trend continued, as Young made just 2, Latham 35, Nicholls 30 and Mitchell 13. Bracewell fell early in the evening session having scored just 6, to leave the Blackcaps 103-7.

When New Zealand were at their best, the low individual scores were the exception; there were enough players in form, or able to dig in, to post the match winning totals that brought them to their World Test Championship glory.

That’s the true sign of a class team – finding a way to turn the tide when things aren’t going well. At the moment, the Blackcaps simply haven’t got that in their arsenal. Wholesale changes to the line-up won’t happen – it’s not in the nature of this regime and even if it was, they don’t have the players waiting in the wings to slot in, like, dare I say it, England do.

For now it’s a case of waiting for the incumbents to find form, and who knows how long that particular piece of string is.

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