Having at least one bowler with startling pace is crucial for visiting Test teams in Australia. That’s why New Zealand erred in not handing a Test debut to express quick Lockie Ferguson against England this week.
When star swing bowler Trent Boult was ruled out of that second Test in Hamilton through injury, the Kiwis were offered a perfect chance to trial Ferguson ahead of next week’s first Test against Australia in Perth.
That Hamilton deck was flat and it is on similarly unresponsive surfaces that visiting teams to Australia are so often undone. It was an ideal pitch, then, on which to give Ferguson his first crack at Tests.
NZ would have got a clearer picture of whether he could offer them the crucial variety and attacking edge they’ll need on the sleepy pitches we’re likely to see for the second and third Tests, at the MCG and SCG.
One of the key reasons touring teams often cannot match Australia on those sorts of batting-friendly wickets is that their quicks are not as penetrative as the home side’s.
The pace and bounce of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood regularly allows them to overcome benign Australian surfaces in a way touring quicks cannot match.
Those unresponsive Australian pitches chew up and spit out 135kmh seam bowlers like Matt Henry, the man NZ picked instead of Ferguson. Henry was tidy but lacked penetration on the dead Hamilton pitch, taking just one wicket from 33 overs as England racked up 476.
The Kiwi seamer is by no means a bad bowler. It is just that Henry’s game is suited to playing on slow, seaming pitches, like those more commonly seen in the UK, or in NZ domestic cricket.
When the pitch is unhelpful he doesn’t have the swing of Boult, the bounce of Hazlewood or the pace of Starc to help him remain a threat. That’s why Henry was cannon fodder in his two previous Tests against Australia, both of which were played on nice batting surfaces. In those two Tests, Henry took 2-292.
Starc. Fast. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
It wasn’t that he bowled awfully in those matches. He didn’t spray the ball around and gift boundary deliveries at regular intervals. Henry just didn’t have the attacking weapons – pace, swing or height – required to overcome those two flat decks.
In Boult and short-ball expert Neil Wagner, New Zealand already have two quicks who look like they could succeed in Australian conditions.
If he’s fit, Boult’s consistent swing and left arm angle should keep him in the contest even on sleepy decks.
Meanwhile, Wagner’s mastery of the bouncer will be valuable for the Kiwis when batting is easy. While I don’t have access to such a stat, I doubt any Test bowler gets more wickets with the short ball than this aggressive left armer.
As NZ lack a world-class spinner, this means they really need to nail their selection of the third fast bowler to partner Boult and Wagner.
Ferguson looks the part. Firstly, the 28-year-old is scary fast. He has been clocked at up to 155kmh and in the World Cup this year consistently bowled in the 145-150kmh bracket.
Among current international bowlers, only Starc and Jofra Archer are as quick as Ferguson. What we don’t know is whether he can maintain those startling speeds across a full Test, particularly on an unfriendly pitch. That question could have been answered this week in Hamilton if the Kiwis picked Ferguson.
Instead they went with the safe option of Henry. Safe options aren’t likely to earn NZ their first Test series victory in Australia in more than 30 years.
New Zealand’s Lockie Ferguson (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
Will NZ’s selectors now have the guts to hand Ferguson a Test debut in what, for the Kiwis, is their version of the Ashes, their biggest fixture on the Test calendar? It would have been so much wiser to let him debut in home conditions against England in a much lower-profile series with a 1-0 lead already in the bag.
Then again, Ferguson showed in the World Cup that he does not suffer stage fright. In fact, rather than intimidating him, being on limited overs cricket’s biggest stage brought the best out of Ferguson.
The right armer was sensational across that entire tournament. He was one of the World Cup’s breakout stars. Ferguson was terrific in the drawn World Cup Final, taking 3-50 including the massive wickets of Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow, and finished the tournament with 21 wickets at 19.
As I watched him in that tournament worrying elite batsmen with his lethal bouncers, I had the same thought over and over: “This guy is going to be a handful next summer in Australia”. Ferguson isn’t just fast and he isn’t just a white ball specialist. He showed in the World Cup he has impressive control and that he’s also a clever, composed bowler.
Not to mention he owns a fantastic first-class record – 154 wickets at 24, with a blistering strike rate of 43.
Ferguson seems built to bowl in Australia. Henry and Southee do not.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Good point. At the moment it’s not telling us much more than we didn’t already know from science, that the ball gets slower as it gets to the batsmen. Would be good if they could compare different rates of deceleration on different pitches or even during a match.
Paul
Roar Guru
outright pace is often nullified by flat wickets though Micko. I go back to that last Ashes series in Australia where Alistair Cook rarely looked like getting a run on just about any Australian pitch in that series, till he got on that road at the MCG and scored that double ton. That was against Cummins, Bird and Hazlewood, with Cummins being pretty slippery.
John Erichsen
Roar Guru
Yet, some want to add the SCG to the drop in pitch mess. Some common sense please!
Micko
Roar Rookie
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Micko
Roar Rookie
The WACA was woeful for a lot of the past decade or more. Just didn't deteriorate after a couple of days the way it used to in the 90's: became a batters' paradise.
Micko
Roar Rookie
Too many of these stupid drop-in pitches!
Micko
Roar Rookie
But surely flat wickets are where outright pace can help, so Ferguson would've been handy there.
John Erichsen
Roar Guru
Oh for those wonderful days when Australian pitches weren't dead...
John Erichsen
Roar Guru
I just hope the pitches offer a contest between bat and ball, like the Adelaide test of that 2015 series. The first two test pitches in 2015 were too batting friendly, the WACA especially so. Personally, I think Ferguson needs to play.
I think it will come down to who bowls the best in the nets. Can't believe Kiwis are only flying out this Saturday. Just a few days to acclimatise and get used to the weird timezone. Nuts. Be a miracle if they don't fall asleep while at the non-strikers end.
JamesH
Roar Guru
No, not given the way the pink ball failed to do much in the last test at Adelaide. My impression of the improvement in Southee's bowling in recent years is that he's found ways to be effective in conditions that aren't bowler-friendly (such as in Sri Lanka and the UAE), which had always been his Achilles heel. Of course, being effective in Australian conditions is one of the biggest challenges in test cricket for a sub-140 paceman. I'm interested to see how he goes.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Yeah, that would be an interesting thing to have in coverage, showing how much the pace of the ball slows down, and really being able to show how much the slower pitch affects the ball. The thing that can really show that is how much slower a shorter ball is by the time it reaches the batsman compared to a yorker. The bigger difference in those two speeds, the slower the pitch. They've often used the ball tracking stuff to show the difference in bounce between similar balls on different pitches in a series, but never really seen that sort of analysis on the pace the ball comes through. Would be interesting to then analyse the difference between different bowlers too. Whether something about the way some bowlers deliver, and the trajectory and such means that the ball often hurries off the surface more compared to others. Up to this point it's all been gut feel, but the tech is there to actually show that clearly now.
Bobbo7
Guest
I guess NZ have been going very well with Boult, Southee and Wagner. Ranked 2 in the world and winning. I thing Ferguson is needed in Australia but from an NZ perspective, the current line up have been doing the job very well.
Bobbo7
Guest
I suspect Wagner bowls a heavy ball because he troubles batsman on flat wickets. He also has a massive engine and doesn't seem to drop off or get discouraged.
RoshTalks
Roar Rookie
Seems like Golden days of fast bowling are back... Every team has some top quality pacers.. *Australia- Cummins Starc Hazelwood Pattinson Richardson Stankale *Bangladesh- Mustafizur(fitness issue) *England- Anderson Broad Archer Curran Stone *India- Bumrah Shami Ishant Umesh Bhuvi Nagarkoti *Newzealand- Boult Southee Henry Ferguson Milne *Pakistan- Abbas Shaheen Naseem Hasnain *South Africa- Rabada Ngidi Nortje *Windies- Roach Holder Gabriel Thomas Joseph *Srilanka- Kumara
ojp
Guest
Similar pace, maybe Wagner a touch quicker, but not by much..... they try to get you out completley differently though; Siddle nurdles you around off stump on a good length, Wagner barley misses his own toes in his desire to dig it in.
ojp
Guest
Re the ball Archer bowled that led to the Denly drop; I'm pretty certain that the no front arm was intentional; the ball came out slow, surprised KW who was way early on his shot and bunted it :cricket: to Denly. If anything, it was a clever, skillful piece of bowling from Jofra. Agree that he wasnt going full bore (or close to it) alot of the time though. Just some general observations; Re the pace from hand etc, I had the benefit of watching Fox coverage who have their new speed gun showing pace of ball from hand vs pace of ball at impact (mid 140's out of Starc's hand ended up being mid 110's at the batting crease). When looking at similar pace balls in the Nz vs Eng / Aus vs Pak test (eg mid to high 130's) the ball was definetly slowing up more on the NZ wicket; to the tune of about 6-8 kms at 135 from the hand on both decks. I have to add that I thought it was a useful and interesting new wrinkle to the coverage. Final one re Wagner; I've watched a fair bit; it is a bit confounding because it looks like its going to be all bluster and no bite and you sit there thinking, yeah, thats not going to work... but it often does. I do expect the Australian batsmen, used to short stuff, to deal much more efficently with his approach than most. He does have awesome facial expressions as he steams in... the best since Andre Nel I reckon.... great 'energy at the crease', Warnie would surely approve :thumbup:
badmanners
Roar Rookie
And being a lefty might cause the odd problem.
U
Roar Rookie
Wagner has performed well all over the world. He will be fine
badmanners
Roar Rookie
Next thing your going to tell me is length isn't everything! :happy: