Well New Zealand have finally beaten Pakistan in a useful, if not entirely crucial, encounter in a World Cup fixture - not to mention the thrashing of several minnows - by using this clever, ingenious, bold and brilliant game plan (I will leave the vomit of adjectives to other media sources as we don't want to be here all day) of retaining wickets till later in the innings. Now even if this were a plan designed to achieve world cup glory, and I will go on to explain why it isn't, assume for now that it is; this should have been the plan ever since the batting-powerplay was conceived - or to win ODIs in general! Add to that the inclusion of a new ball at over 34 and John Wright must be grinning at this idea that what he is preaching is somehow new testament stuff. OK fine, you might say 'where was your blog suggesting such a plan from day one, sir?' and you would be right to do so but in my defense I hoped captains would at least try and use the batting-slog-fest, excuse me, power-play before the 34th over and see what happens. The experiment has been run and the results suggest they can't so the Black Caps' plan is neither revolutionary nor clever but merely natural. Give Wright and the players credit for pulling it off (for now) if you must, but don't tell me it's brilliant.
Now I said before that if you assume it were true that this game plan could lead you to world cup victory etc, well here is the part where we find it isn't. Like most seemingly all-encompassing game plans, this one has some rather large wholes or perhaps, to be fair, tests to be undertaken first. Now ignore for a moment the cesspool of drool about how well the team is progressing and look at what they have actually achieved, namely beating Kenya by aiming at the stumps (I don't like saying 'Cricket 101' but my hand is forced here), losing the plot against Australia, crushing Zimbabwe, lucking out against Pakistan (thank you Kamran Akmal) and failing to bowl out Canada in 50 overs. To expand on a couple of these matches:
- The all-encompassing plan must be designed to work in most, if not all situations. so when you remove Taylor's large century from the top order, as you must do to retain your intellectual honesty (even the minnow keepers could have caught ONE of the two offerings Taylor sent in that direction) you see how affective the plan is against top sides, or I should say how affective it has been so far. Now, as we won't be facing a parade of minnow teams in the finals stage of this tournament, the plan appears to be nonsense in the first round if you will excuse the pun
- The Zimbabwe victory perhaps represents a stronger example against my position so I will deal with it now. It is true that the controlled nature of the batting was according to plan and encouraging for that reason - the ability to follow a simple plan has too often escaped New Zealand cricket players - but the only reason that that result seemed to provide legitimacy to the hype was the image of Zimbabwe as a competent foe. Now I take some of the blame for fostering that image (along with many in the media and the team themselves through word and deed) but I quickly doubted this myself when Zimbabwe chose to bat first and not submit our top-order to their spinners who performed admirably against Australia the week before. This same kind of stupidity was on show from the captain against Sri Lanka when they opened with 'pace' bowlers to Dilshan and Tharanga who couldn't believe their luck. Zimbabwe have risen and fallen in my praises like a season i'm afraid but that story is best left for another entry
Once you take these two examples into account you have 1 loss to a top team, 3 acts of minnow-crushing and 1 very lucky encounter with a terrible keeper. Where is all this optimism coming from?
A good friend of mine suggested the other day that I could act the function of the rear end of a male cow on everything but wouldn't when it came to cricket (paraphrasing a tad there) well never let it be said that I declined a worthy, cricket-related challenge! Thus here I give it the old college try
There is one thing which provides me with hope for this Black Caps campaign and that is the reality-check provided by the early loss to Australia. If there is one thing common to the all-encompassing plan is that its failure is spectacular and can be witnessed every time a cricket team, for instance, tries it. In 1992 the New Zealand team coasted on a seemingly sensible plan until the semi-final against Pakistan where the dibbliest, dobbliest and wobbliest of methods was shown up against Inzamam Ul Haq. in 2007 progress was stopped by a strong Sri Lankan side in the semi-final (again) and the ability to chase anything (or 'win from anyway' as Ian Smith rashly put it one memorable night in Hamilton) was revealed as not part of the team's repertoire afterall. The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that the loss to Australia, with any luck, lifted the illusion of a plan that could see us to April and forced the team to be more flexible. To put together a state of mind, enhanced by confidence acquired against minnows, capable of beating strong opposition in key matches. The doom of 1992 does not await if this is true
To end on a slightly more serious tone, if you want a more reliable example of better things to come, the talk this week has been about treating the final group match against Sri Lanka as a knockout match even though we sit top of the table. In 1992 we also lost to Pakistan in the last group match (often forgotten) and in 2007 we lost against Australia before the semifinals. Whether or not the false consolation provided by a rigid game plan has been removed SURELY the overconfidence has been
Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again
It's good bye for now
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