Three small things

1) England won an ODI in India. They have not done so (or at least not done so against India, they obviously did win a few matches at the last World Cup) since the 2006 tour and even that was in a dead rubber win and their only one in the seven match series. I didn’t see most of it, but it was a close affair with both sides scoring over 300. It was also the first match of the new ODI fielding restrictions, so it’s hard to say if the bowlers really underperformed or if scores are going to be higher on average now. We’ll probably never find out though; it surely can’t be long before the ICC simply make every over a powerplay over in the name of increased ‘excitement’. England will be obviously pleased to win and go 1-0 up in the series, but it is especially important with their recent record in India to get that first win out of the way and I think it will give them an excellent confidence boost ahead of the next match.

2) South Africa are 325-4 after the first day of the second Test against New Zealand. At least in the second half of the day, which is the part I saw, New Zealand did not look particularly penetrative and they let South Africa get well ahead from it being about honours even halfway through the day. They didn’t help themselves in the field; there was one dropped catch (against Hashim Amla no less), a low chance missed at slip and a would-be caught behind given not out and then not reviewed. I expected South Africa would put up a good first innings score, but the Kiwis have made it too easy for them at least on the first day. The pitch was turning by stumps, so the fact that neither side have a good spinner might become important.

3) An ICC committee have made another suggestion about DRS, this time that it be left up to the home board. I like this idea and this is the most reasonable implementation apart from simply making it mandatory. It would be simply a part of the conditions for each country, much like the different brand of ball used or the different hours of play. Of course, India have already expressed a dislike of the idea which means that it will be blocked just like all the previous times this has been tried.

South Africa v New Zealand second Test preview

On Friday England’s first ODI against India starts two hours before the second South Africa v New Zealand Test. Even from an English standpoint it’s a bit tricky to know which one is more important. England have already played ten ODIs against India in the past 18 months and have five Tests coming up against New Zealand, so how the Kiwis try to fight back may give a hint of what England can expect starting in March. Plus, England’s recent record in ODIs in India means that the Test might be a closer contest.

The pitch in Port Elizabeth looks like it will make any comparison difficult, however. It has tended to be rather slow in the past and by all accounts it still is. It may actually be closer to the pitch on which England will be playing in Rajkot than the pitch on which they will play in Dunedin. It’s slow enough, in fact, that New Zealand are considering a second spinner for the match after dropping Chris Martin and there is a decent argument for doing so. South Africa actually don’t have a good record at the ground, they’ve not won a Test there this century, and it may be that a bit of extra turn will be their undoing. New Zealand are playing three seamers either way (though I suspect Colin Munro has likely been picked to shore up the batting as much as anything else) so a second spinner is probably a reasonable decision. Bruce Martin does not have great first-class statistics, but they aren’t appalling and I expect they came almost entirely on pitches more conducive to seam bowling.

South Africa don’t appear to be considering a second spinner, though given that said spinner would likely be Imran Tahir it isn’t a surprise. Robin Peterson hardly inspires fear, but he is the best option. Their only change will be the return of Rory Kleinveldt in place of the injured Vernon Philander. Whilst it is a good chance for them to try to develop their bowling in depth, it looks like a fairly big blow as Kleinveldt did not impress in the two Tests he got in Australia. South Africa do need him to step up though. Not so much for this particular Test, they can afford a bit of a let-up, but for the upcoming series against Pakistan. They look to be much tougher opposition and South Africa need to make sure they have someone to back up the main three quicks.

South Africa are still strong favourites in this Test, of course, but New Zealand do have a chance to come back well. They have not changed their batting from the last Test and they will need to perform rather better, but they are boosted by the fact that the pitch will give the South Africans less assistance this time and by the absence of Philander who did most of the damage in the 45 all out. I don’t expect them to win, but I do expect them to compete this time and perhaps push for a draw. I expect that South Africa will put up a fairly large total in the first innings (regardless of who wins the toss), so a lot will depend on how New Zealand’s batsmen can build on their second innings performance from Cape Town. I hope that they do bat better; I want to see a contest. But I suppose if it gets too one-sided I can always turn back over to the ODI…

South Africa win by an innings and 27 runs

In a way it is a bit difficult to know what to make of New Zealand’s performance in the Cape Town Test. On the one hand, it was clearly poor; they were bowled out for 45 in the first innings. But after that they actually fought back well and although there was never a chance to win the match they actually came rather closer than they ought to have to avoiding an innings defeat. The fact that they were bowled out so cheaply cannot be glossed over, but at the same time there are teams who would not have bothered to show up on the second day after being bowled out for 45 and then conceding 252-3. It’s also worth remembering that the Kiwis were up against a very good South African side who bowled Australia out for 47 on the same ground 14 months ago.

The 45 all out cannot be ignored, but I do think New Zealand would be well advised to put it out of their heads for now. It was perhaps not a freak occurrence, good bowling and poor batting will generally produce low score, but the magnitude was such that at least for now they should treat it as a one-off. I suspect that dwelling on it ahead of the next Test would be counter-productive. The bigger problem is that I don’t think they would have won the Test even without being bowled out so cheaply. The 275 they put up in the second innings was a decent effort in the circumstance, but it was effectively a first innings pitch and would still have represented a sizeable deficit had they made it in the first innings.

It is hard to say what New Zealand ought to do because they have the problem that South Africa are simply a better side and everyone knew that even coming into the series. The batting will be the obvious thing at which to look and it does need to be more disciplined (which has actually been true for some time), but it might be worth working on the bowling too. They were a bit slow to recognise the value of simply bowling line and length on that pitch (although some of that might be put down to shell-shock at what happened to the batting) and South Africa actually scored quite freely for much of the innings. The improvements on the second day meant that it wasn’t a bad bowling performance overall, but with the batting consistently suspect they can ill-afford to concede 250 runs in two sessions at any time. This is not to excuse the batting, but the problems with that are much deeper and probably cannot be fixed in between Tests. The bowling can improve though.

After being bowled out for 47 a year ago, Australia came back to win the next Test. Although New Zealand have tended to play rather better in the second Test of their recent series, Hobart and Colombo being the most notable examples, I doubt that they will manage to win in Port Elizabeth. They might, and hopefully will, make the Test interesting. But South Africa are rather better than Australia and Sri Lanka and I think they will simply be too good for the Kiwis. Even if Vernon Philander does not pull up fit for that Test I do not think that New Zealand have the batting to put up a competitive total and even if they bowl well I think South Africa will score too many for them. I had similar thoughts before Hobart and Colombo, however, and would love to be wrong again.