Can NZ beat Eng

I was all fired up for the English tour of New Zealand, but that was a month or so ago, the 4 limted overs matches since then have quietened it.

But over the ditch they are still excited.

And so who better than Sportsfreak to sprout forth their views.

With the inevitable regularity of the arrival of Halley’s comet, New Zealand is finally about to start a proper test series. It is of more that 2 games, and it is against a side ranked ahead of it, but still beatable. If you close you eyes and try really hard, you can also pretend it is actually a 6 match series, like real test nations sometimes play; the second half of the series being in England in May and June.

It will certainly make a welcome change from the 6 month Indian tour of Australia, and associated theatrics that have sunk to new levels of banality. It will also make a change from the daily defections and contract breaking from disaffected players.

A large part of this anticipation is that it is hard to remember what a real test series was all about. There is no reference point. It is a bit like describing what a peaceful day in Baghdad would be like, or trying to assess what Britney Spears may suggest as a way of overcoming Global Warming.

This is not like previewing an ODI against Sri Lanka, for example.

The New Zealand selectors have not made it any easier either. The Wise Men have surprised all by Picking Grant Elliot in the 13, despite has mediocre performances in the first-class portion of the NZ season to date, back in 2007. Perhaps this is just a case of If you can’t beat them, join them; every side needs a South African somewhere.

But will he play as a batsman, and an extra bowler? Or will they take more conservative approach and further strengthen the NZ lower order? Or is he just in the mix to learn drink-mixing techniques from Patel? Double-guessing the mindset of Camp Braces is a tawdry business, and tends to result in Vincent-like symptoms.

Leaving aside the Elliot confusion, there is a glaring frailty about the NZ batting line-up. Bell earned a recall after scoring a million runs before Xmas in domestic cricket, but he has hardly batted since. He is joined by How who boasts a test average of 14 and played his first 1st class game in a year last week.

After that it gets worse. The options for number 3 are Sinclair who is as confidence inspiring as he has always been, or playing Fleming out of position as some kind of punishment for making himself unavailable for the second leg of the series. For New Zealand to succeed, they need their best test batsmen scoring as many runs as possible. But ego politics have marginalised the former captain, and the body language is not promising. It was never meant to end like this.

Make no mistake, Taylor is a talent of the future, but the ingrained obsession with the slog-sweep and other recently introduced technical deficiencies mean he is currently a liability. A succession of innings getting snicked out to Hoggard outswingers will do him no long-term favours.

As is so often the case, the strength is in the batsmen to follow. Oram has been in good nick all season and Ian Smith needs something to shout about, McCullum is in the form of his life now that he’s Dunedin’s richest man, and Vettori somehow keeps getting runs. There are no points for elegance in test cricket. But these three can not be expected to do it all on their own in every innings.

The bowling is steady yet unspectacular. Martin will be there or thereabouts throughout, although it is a bit much to expect him to carry out all wicket-taking responsibilities on his own. He will need help from the end, and that means that Mills will need to swing the red ball like he swings the white one. He may be ranked 5th in the ODI hit parade, but he needs to be able transfer that. That much-coveted IPL contract is only a decent test series away, and he will be wanting his brother to do something useful for him.

For the tourists, test cricket is less of an exotic rarity, although they are coming off back-to-back series defeats, and are still suffering from the Ashes humiliation, and subsequent shuffling of the deck-chairs. Having said that, England are in the rare position of being able to boast an entire top 6 averaging over 40. And England likes being able to boast.

There has been something unseemly about the desperation to shoe-horn Andrew Strauss back into the side. After a couple of months of being outscored by BJ Watling for Northern Districts, he got the chance to play himself into form in both the lead-up games, finally coming right in his last innings. So he will play, which apparently is a great relief as he’s safe at 1st slip; a timely reminder of just how awful England’s fielding was in the ODI series, and a vote of no confidence to their new Australian wicket-keeper. The result of this is that Owais Shah, despite scoring 96 in his only meaningful innings on tour will miss out. The shadowy hand of Peter Moores at work.

A lot will depend on how the English will tackle Vettori. The most effective way is to keep him out at the start, wait until he’s wheeled his way through all of his 23 variations, before wearing him down. That is what England did so successfully in 2004, but it is unlikely this team will show that discipline. There was no Pietersen having to prove he is the gift to Modern Man in 2004.

The injury to Sidebottom is a worry for England. As annoying as he may be, he was the only bowler to perform consistently throughout the ODIs, and is the obvious foil to Hoggard and Harmison. In addition, it is now widely appreciated that New Zealand can not play left-armers; especially Fleming. Without him, there is more pressure on Harmison, and we know he does not like that.

In his probable absence there is the hope that they will plump for Anderson. But he was just so awful in the ODIs that they are more likely to pick Broad, given that Frequent Flyer Tremlett’s tour lasted for the characteristic 5 days. Broad’s inclusion will raise the pulse of teenage girls and returning Sydney Mardi Gras tourists alike.

So who will win? Well, like comet-watching, it is hard to predict what will happen in such an unusual occurrence. The home side have thrown away a lot of the traditional home advantage by leading into this with a complete lack of first-class play, and start as underdogs. On paper, England are demonstrably the better side. But they still have the ability to self-destruct white away from home, especially in God-forsaken dumps like Hamilton, and the key New Zealanders do have a few things to play for.

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