The Black Caps' batting was outclassed and overawed

For NZ cricket to firstly accept the playing schedule after , just finishing a series in NZ was a step to far. Perth , pink ball , evening cricket, bugger all prep games, bouncy wickets. The best the Black Caps could hope for was a draw. They got cleaned up n badly.....if anything NZ cricket admin need to get a better schedule n give their team a chance to play few warm up games. That said, the Oz bowling attack is unbelievable at home.

Yes, it was a very disappointing tour from the Kiwis point of view, we expected a much better competition.

Fair point, although the pitch was at its best on the first two days. It was turning by the NZ first innings, but the lack of good spinners plus lack of scoreboard pressure was the difference.

At the risk of repeating, clearly they learnt nothing from the previous tour, where they arrived over-confident and massively under-prepared. The last time they were on show at the MCG, the game was over with the 5th ball, this time they lost it at the toss. Yes, they had some bad luck with injuries and some baffling selections, but one day they may finally figure out it takes a mighty concerted effort to beat Australia in Australia. There were a few occasions where the bowlers really dug in and gave of their best, but you couldn't say the same for the batsmen. Or "batters", as they are now called.... :angry: At least during the tour we were able to enjoy the delights of listening to the wit and wisdom of Jeremy Coney during the ABC radio broadcast. Now there's a man with a balanced point of view about cricket.

A lot of people say NZ should have batted first after winning the toss in Melbourne. Given that that the conditions early on suited the seamers the Australian pace attack would have loved to bowled first. They would have been more threatening to get early wickets and Blundell would have been in the hot step from ball one of the test being new to opening in test cricket in front of 80000. NZ could have been 3 or 4 down in the first session on that day.

Don’t know about the worst of the pitch. In between NZ’s two innings the Aussies scored 2/200+ with Labushagne really only getting out because they were slogging for quick runs. Don’t think you can blame the conditions.

A good post your holiness!

Thanks Sean for a good summary. I think we were all a little surprised by how one sided the tour was.

I reckon Wagner was slightly flattered by the early reluctance of Smith to buckle down & bat time until the third test, I think Steve's ego got the better of himself for a few digs there with all the talk about a perceived weakness. Overall, the Aussie approach of trying to score quickly worked in his favour with a few cheap wickets plus the lefties struggled, Marnus applied himself & wasn't troubled much by Wagner. He did however keep coming, unlike Santner who would struggle in grade cricket on his efforts, how did he get a bagful against the poms?

Some excuse for Williamson with a close lbw in one of his digs but he looked flat & under the pump due to the pacemen targeting him. That said, Joe Burns, who has copped most of the criticism aimed at the Aussie bats did get that shocking lbw decision which clearly was missing leg by a foot so you have to wear the decisions. On the plus side with the drama surrounding bushfires, our economy benefitted from the thousands of confident kiwis who descended on Melbourne & to a lesser extent Sydney expecting a contest. I'd expect Williamson to bounce back on flatter tracks but Taylor is starting to show his age & might not have long left in the really top echelon.

Might have been more interesting if NZ had managed to bat first on at least one occasion. Only themselves to blame with Williamson blowing their only chance to hit the front and see what happens. Batting second is clearly a disadvantage when that team has been in the field for the best part of 2 days. If find this baffling considering the amount of training they put in. I could be wrong but the modern professional is no better, if not worse, at digging in than his semi professional "stumps means beers" predecessor. Maybe it's wthe rong sort of training or too much training. If chasing 400-500+ surely the best thing would be a good massage, a nice shower and a good sleep. Yet the modern cricketer runs around like a mad thing for a good hour before going out to face a bloke going at 140k.

I saw lots of comments about the Kiwi’s fight and such, but to be bowled out for less than the follow on in all three matches really doesn’t suggest there was a lot of “fight”. There were certainly plenty of players who got great balls, but there were certainly a fair share of soft wickets thrown away also that doesn’t really fit with the “scrapping” and “fighting” idea.

Agree Paul that was a strange comment about the worse batting performance. Not sure though about no attack in the world doing better - I think the Kiwis were on the back foot with lack of preparation going straight into a pink ball Test in Perth, outdone by a great bowling performance in Melbourne, and perhaps a bit shell shocked and undermanned, with the worst of the pitch, in Sydney. The India series will be very interesting.

I can't argue with the stats Chris but this side never gave up with bat or ball. The first team I saw do that were the Poms in 74/75 and they probably had fair cause to do that, given the working over they copped from Lillee and Thompson. It's happened more than a few times since, so while the stats might suggest otherwise, I still maintain this Black Caps team never stopped scrapping. They were simply outplayed & outclassed.

Southee’s stats were certainly padded by some cheap late innings wickets when the Aussies were looking for quick runs. But despite their bowling short-comings, the fact NZ only passed 180 twice in 6 innings and the best of those was only 251 (until the bizarre 5 run penalty) suggests batting was a pretty major problem.

Read some of the articles with stats from the series. This NZ series has the second worst overall batting average of any visiting team in Australia in a series of 3 or more tests, and their top score for the series I believe was also the worst ever top score for a 3+ test series in Australia or something like that. So statistically it was among the absolute worst batting performances in the history of test cricket in Australia. Which is just insane since NZ came here boasting probably their best ever test batting lineup.

Not sure about the idea that Australia is a uniquely attacking team or that persevering with Lyon against Taylor in Perth was a stroke of tactical genius. If anything Lyon’s fields have often been too negative- as Warne, Mark Waugh and others have often noted, they are too reluctant to put in a silly mid off and often kept men on the boundary even when the opposition is chasing a huge total and defeat seems inevitable. Don’t think we showed any tactical genius when India outbowled and out batted us last year, nor in South Africa and the UAE the year before. Ditto the Ashes. This season has seen great victories but let’s not start overdoing the hype. NZ underperformed, and maybe they were a little overawed in Melbourne, but it’s a small sample to generalise about how Williamson and Taylor got out. Marnus played three shots in his first couple of overs in Melbourne that were just about as bad as their mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are fatal and sometimes they aren’t.

Actually, the big problem was the bowling. Wagner has a heart as big as himself and wound up with very good figures - but how many of them were top order batsmen for low scores? He'd be a great third seamer behind a good opening attack. NZ has that in its own conditions, but not in Australia. Southee had probably his statistically best tour of Australia - but again, look behind the figures and it's the same old story - no penetration when the game is live, made to appear better by token wickets when it's already lost. NZ's problem going into the series was perhaps illustrated by the Sky TV highlights mentioned in the article - which involved either (a) Richard Hadlee or (b) a very helpful green pitch. Can NZ point to success in Australia not involving one of those factors? One day it no doubt will be able to - but probably not with a bowling lineup that's tried and failed before. And that's not even mentioning Mitchell Santner. When the bowling failed, the batting then succumbed to a very good Australian attack, getting the worst of the conditions in the day night lottery and run pressure. I'm certainly not disputing that the batting did perform well below what might have been expected - I'm just saying that wasn't the main problem.

I hope you didn't write the title to this piece Sean? I agree the Black Caps were out played & in most cases, out classed, but I'm not at all comfortable with suggesting they were overawed. I'm also not sure how you can to the conclusion New Zealand put in"the worst batting performances seen in 139 years in Australia"? I can recall some very sketchy performance by our guys in the 80's and lets not forget it wasn't that many years ago when people were almost taking bets on which innings we'd see an Australian batting collapse. I'd also suggest some of the efforts from England in some of the 5 nil Ashes hidings were on par or worse than these efforts from New Zealand. I'm also wondering, if they were so bad, why would we want them to tour again in the near future, as you suggested in your last paragraph? You also made the statement "The lack of a plan to rotate the strike was clear to see, let alone any plan to counter the bowling through standing out of the crease to upset the line and length Pat Cummins was able to hit virtually every ball" I watched quite a bit of the previous series against England and the Black Caps continually turned over the strike. That they could do so in this series doesn't mean they didn't want to, but that's a very difficult task when the bowling's so accurate and the fielding was so on song. I'm also wondering who would be game to stand outside their crease as you suggest when the only bloke not bowling at 140k plus was Lyon? You also suggested they'd have success if they could play off the back foot as Blundell did and in that regard I think you're right, but if so, why stand out of your crease? I doubt greatly whether any team in world cricket could have done a lot better than the Kiwis did against that attack, in those conditions. It's hard to remember a more complete bowling effort from 4/5 guys all in form and all at the peak of the powers. You didn't have to be off your game by much, as Williamson was, to be made to look dead ordinary. That's simply great bowling IMO.

The WACA pitch has been dead for Tests for more than a decade with that draw with NZ 4 years ago, and SA cantering to a win chasing over 400 on days 4 &5, two of the dull pitches I can recall. The 3 pitches this time all had a bit in them, and there were no easy runs on offer for the kiwis.