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What are New Zealand's Test selectors doing?

11th October, 2016
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Kane Williamson. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
Roar Guru
11th October, 2016
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1294 Reads

I was wondering if any New Zealand cricket fans could enlighten me about the make-up of their Test team?

I don’t know that much about Kiwi cricket, but I know a little.

I watch all the international games they play against us; I’m familiar with their top players; I loved their recent renaissance under Brendon McCullum and their efforts at the World Cup; I miss the writing of Martin Crowe and the batting of Chris Martin; I was gripped by the Chris Cairns perjury trial.

At full strength and on good days, the Black Caps can beat anyone, but they seem to lack bench strength. If their population had an extra million or two they’d be regularly fighting for the top spot all the time.

That, and their selectors are holding the Test team back.

Let’s look at the side for the most recent Test against India: Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Luke Ronchi, James Neesham, BJ Watling, Mitchell Santer, Jeetan Patel, Matt Henry and Trent Boult.

Some of these selections are obvious. Williamson, Boult and Taylor are world class – any team would be lucky to have them (ditto the injured Southee). Ronchi, Watling and Latham are pretty good. Henry maybe isn’t awesome but he’s okay (like Neil Wagner, who’s in the squad).

But what about the rest? Guptil averages 29 with the bat after 46 Tests. Neesham and Santner are bits-and-pieces all rounders – Neesham has a first-class average of 34 with the bat and 33 with the ball (taking less than two wickets a game), Santner has a first-class average of 29 with the bat, and 45 with the ball (less than two wickets a game).

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Patel has 650 first class wickets at 35, with a batting average of 22.5, and 54 Test wickets from 20 Tests at 48.81. (As an aside, Patel replaced Mark Craig, who has 129 first-class wickets from 51 games at an average of 43 – something presumably compensated by a batting average of 25.)

These are not great stats from Crowe country, but at first I put it down to lack of alternates. Selectors can only pick what’s in front of them.

However a casual search of Cricket Archive and Cricfino revealed that New Zealand domestic cricket has some bloke called Jeef Raval who’s played 67 first-class games, made almost 5000 runs at an average of 43.85, and another guy called Colin Munro who has made 2844 runs at an average of 48.20, and is a handy part-time bowler.

Not to mention young gun called Bharat Popli, who is averaging 49.83 with 1545 runs after 20 games, or spinner Ajaz Patel, who has taken 95 first-class wickets from 26 games at 34.46.

Is there are a decent reason why the Kiwis aren’t playing these guys in the Test team? They’re not even in the squad. Okay, Popli is only young, but what’s wrong with Raval?

I get the impression Munro is considered a one-day specialist, but doesn’t a first-class average of 48 demand some respect? Instead of giving a go to someone like Patel, why do they persist with Santner, who has 49 wickets from 32 games? A first-class average of 29 isn’t good enough to justify that. Maybe he’ll turn into Daniel Vettori down the line, but why not let him learn his trade at first-class level and free up his spot for someone else?

For some bizarre reason New Zealand seemed to have borrowed Australia’s selection strategy from their tour of India in 2013 – fill the team with all rounders rather than specialists, ignore batsmen with first class averages over 40, and pick third-rate spinners over first-rate pacemen ‘because that’s what you do in India’. Australia lost that series 4-0 and now New Zealand are well on the way to match it.

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Do selectors not care about first-class averages? Do they not like to pick players who were born outside New Zealand? Do they ever look at whether, statistically speaking, playing specialists wins more game than a team full of bits and pieces cricket? Are there temperament issues involved? I’d genuinely like to know.

A Kiwi XI of Latham, Raval, Williamson, Taylor, Popli/Ronchi, Munro, Watling, Ajaz Patel, Wagner, Henry/Boult and Southee would be very competitive. Their current XI has weak batting at the top and middle, and an unpenetrative attack. They’re making it easy for India.

A strong New Zealand is good for world cricket, but their selectors aren’t giving their country its best chance.

But, like I say, maybe there are other issues here – if anyone can enlighten me, I’d love to hear it.

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