It’s white-ball cricket, but not as you’ve known it for a long, long time.
With Hamilton experiencing persistent rain in the lead-up to the third ODI on Tuesday, Seddon Park could provide similar conditions, with the pitch spending considerable amounts of time sweating under covers.
In some ways, this series may be something of a blessing in disguise for both teams, whose squads include a number of players who will go on to feature in the two-match Test series that follows the ODIs. Given the short turnaround between the series, both squads have withdrawn their Test players from the last two ODIs, but many of them may have already begun their Test preparations in the course of negotiating the unusual conditions in the 50-over games.
“No one will make Test adjustments during a white-ball [series], but at the same time, the way the wickets were in both ODIs, there was swing, and after five-six overs, when the swing stopped, there was seam movement too, and you could say a little bit of awkward bounce too,” Kotak said ahead of the third ODI. “In hindsight, it’s a good thing, because we might get the same things in the Test matches, only the ball will be red.
“You will still have a one-day intent and mindset in one-day [matches], but the wickets here, with thicker grass, 12-14mm grass, the conditions – you get an idea even in the one-dayers. You may not get wickets that are as green as you get in Test matches [in New Zealand], but it’s quite good conditions to play in, and it’s challenging to have 140-type matches. It’s not like they are 300-type matches. It’s a good thing, I think.
“Plus the three India A matches also, our red-ball players are playing [in them], so that is also a big advantage for batters and at the same time for bowlers also. They would also know where to bowl, what lengths, what help you are getting with what kind of releases. So I think, all in all, the preparation has been very good, and on top of that, the Test players [who will be released from the ODI squad] are going for a camp on the 11th [in Mount Maunganui], so we will get five-six sessions there too. So fingers crossed, we should be ready for the Test series as well.”
“Technically, yeah, they will,” he said when asked if the conditions during the ODIs have helped the Test players prepare for the assignment ahead of them. “That’s traditionally what we have here for Test cricket, it’s a lot greener surfaces, so in reality that Wellington surface was more of a Test type of surface.
“So it’s [about] grasping hold of that and realising that, and it will help both teams and I think it’s quite cool. The bowlers have actually got the upper hand – there’s nothing wrong with that. Like traditionally, you go around the world, especially in India, if teams don’t make 400 [in an ODI], you’re in trouble, so it’s just ridiculous, so [it’s good] to see the bowlers have an opportunity and get some [helpful] conditions, because you still have to bowl well on it and both teams have been doing that, so I think that’s a cool thing to see as well.”
Ronchi felt the unusualness of the conditions was challenging the batters’ ability to work out their approach in the middle. He felt 200 would have been “a massive score” in the second ODI at Hnry Stadium, but this would have been a tricky thing for the team batting first – New Zealand, in this particular case – to understand and internalise.
“That’s the difficult nature of batting first and understanding, and that’s where communication comes into it,” he said. “The batters that are out there at the moment, you can tell quite quickly if a surface is quicker, if it’s slower, if it’s moving, and that’s the communication those batters pass back to the next guy’s batting or if we lose an early wicket then there’s communication there, so it’s making sure that that’s going strongly.
“I think if you stay quiet at that stage, that’s where you get yourself into more trouble, so it’s a skill in itself.”
For batters habituated to pitches where 300 is par, however, it can be difficult to set your sights significantly lower even if your instincts are telling you that’s the right thing to do.
“Very much, and it’s not just one day – I think it’s in any cricket at the moment, scoring rates are going up,” Ronchi said. “So when it’s not that, it’s [about] realising, okay, we can pull back here, we don’t need to be going at eight an over from ball one, three an over for the moment could be [fine], and then you can score more at the back end of any innings, once they have five [fielders] out [on the boundary] and those sorts of things, and the longer you bat, the easier hopefully it should become.
“But again, there’s not many batters from either side that have really made it look easy, especially the last game. Obviously Virat [Kohli] in that first game did that [he scored 74 in 51 balls], but again it’s those moments in games that make a difference, to say, well how can we [approach this].
“[Like] Daryl Mitchell [did in Wellington], how can you bat a hundred balls if you got 50-odd or whatever it was [55 in 104 balls], in that moment it’s actually a really important innings, and if you can bat around that, but it’s a hard thing to. It’s a hard thing to trust when you’re used to scoring [fast and when] 300’s your par, and then all of a sudden you’re taking 100 runs off that, it’s a big difference.”
Though chasing targets is typically more straightforward than setting totals in these conditions, India found out in Wellington that this can be tricky too. Rain brought that match to an end, giving them a narrow, four-run win by the DLS method. The margin could have been bigger had Naman Dhir and Anshul Kamboj not lost their wickets to aggressive shots when rain was imminent.
“In the last game, after we lost five wickets, we got an idea that there could be rain, and Naman was batting,” Kotak said. “The tricky thing is, these people play such good aggressive cricket, and we keep speaking about positive intent. If someone says Naman shouldn’t have played that shot – even I may not have wanted him to play that shot, for example – but the thin line is, at the same time, the cricket Naman plays, his style, and the ability that he has, that’s why he’s here. If he starts playing defensively, you’ll say there are lots of players like that in India.
“The challenge is, without touching their way of playing, without building pressure on them, how they can control their mind, what shot can I play at this time, and what should I not – that is the challenge. In these conditions, when rain is around, when wickets are like this, it’s a great learning for us [coaches] also, for players also.
“Because when the team needs you to stay there for two-three overs, where runs actually don’t matter, [you might need to temper your approach], but eventually I also sometimes feel they have only played a few matches, and they will learn. They are very fortunate to play in these conditions.
“Same with Anshul – he could easily have played [out] six balls, and KL [Rahul] was playing with him, so they didn’t have that much [need to play big shots]. So without changing their way of playing, how can they modify their batting where they adapt to the conditions and situation and what the team’s requirement is, and just try and do their best – that’s all they can do. For me it is great, because they will definitely learn, because they are discussing [these things].”
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at Cricinfo
