the times | Wednesday November 10 2021 2GM 65
Sport
F
irst things first: New Zealand
are not India, and that alone
will put a spring in England’s
step as they go into their
semi-final. The Kiwis have a
batting line-up that is capable of
posting solid scores but probably not
stratospheric ones, but given the
quality and variety of their bowling,
along with their tireless fielding, that
can be enough to make them
competitive against most opponents.
Whether they are a team equipped
simply to get through the group stage
of Twenty20 tournaments rather than
win them is about to be found out,
but New Zealand cricket has long
traded well on being underestimated.
Being dependable and unflashy has
not hurt them in the 50-over format (in
which they reached the 2019 World
Cup final before famously losing to
England by the barest of margins) or
the Test arena (where they won the
World Test Championship final by
beating India in June). Not bad for a
country with a population of five
million and about 100,000 registered
players, roughly a third of the best
estimates for the UK or Australia.
They are a settled side. They drew
on only 12 players in their five group
games, making only one change after
an opening defeat by Pakistan. Tim
Seifert, the first-choice wicketkeeper,
was dropped to make room for an
additional fast bowler, Adam Milne,
with the gloves passing to the middle-
order batsman Devon Conway.
This has meant that Kane
Williamson has had six bowlers to
work with, although his front five
have gone so steadily that Jimmy
Neesham, the all-rounder, has bowled
only eight overs.
The openers, Martin Guptill and
Daryl Mitchell, have scored 301 runs
from 227 balls between them, but go
relatively slowly against off spin so it
may benefit England to give Moeen
Ali the new ball again. Williamson,
who bats at No 3, is a steady
accumulator but has shown a slight
hesitancy against the googly, which
could bring Adil Rashid into play.
Left-arm pace has also gone well
against Guptill and Williamson, but
unless England are prepared to bring
in David Willey or Reece Topley that
will not be an area they can exploit.
Williamson is the only frontline
batsman on either side with a strike
rate below 100 but this is largely
explained by the fact that he has not
had to go hard in two easy run-chases.
Deploying three right-handers in
the top three (followed by three left-
handers in Conway, Neesham and
Mitchell Santner in the next four
slots) is an old-school approach that
may make it easier for Eoin Morgan
to indulge his passion for matching
specific bowlers to specific batsmen. It
will be interesting to see whether
New Zealand shuffle their order to
disrupt the England captain’s plans.
Glenn Phillips, who, like Conway,was born in South Africa, has not
faced England before but played a
couple of games alongside Jonny
Bairstow for Welsh Fire in the
Hundred. He scored 108 off 51 balls in
a T20 against West Indies last year
and has done well in the Caribbean
Premier League, but has benefited
from playing on small grounds. This
semi-final — in Abu Dhabi — is at
the biggest venue of the tournament.
If your domestic grounds are so
small that you can hit a six with a
toothpick, then you are perhaps not
going to develop battalions of big-
hitters, and New Zealand have relied
heavily on Neesham for power-hitting
at the end of an innings.
New Zealand have hit 21 sixes at a
rate of one every 27 balls compared
with England’s 30 sixes at one every
15 balls. As with England, New
Zealand played only one of their five
group games in Abu Dhabi.
Their bowling attack is nicely
balanced. They have a right-arm
seamer in Tim Southee and a left-arm
swing bowler in Trent Boult. Milne is
genuinely quick. The two spinners
offer an orthodox left-arm angle from
Santner and leg spin from Ish Sodhi.
Southee and Boult have been
excellent in the powerplay and have
taken an impressive 18 wickets
between them (Boult 11, Southee
seven). Santner is a very defensive
bowler and has taken only two
wickets but Sodhi is much more of a
threat having claimed eight.
Some of the specifics on New
Zealand’s spinners will arouse
England’s interest. They have gone
much better against right-handers
(eight wickets at an average of 18.5)
than left-handers (two wickets at 45
each), which suggests that Dawid
Malan, Morgan and Ali could have
some success against them in the
middle phase when Santner and
Sodhi like to bowl most of their overs.
Moreover, Sodhi has yet to bowl a
single googly in the competition. The
two of them therefore are not taking
the ball away from left-handers.
New Zealand have won seven and
lost 12 of their previous T20 games
against England, and a Super Over
(four months after their famous one
at Lord’s in the World Cup final) was
required in their most recent meeting,
two years ago today, a T20 series
decider in Auckland.
That Super Over was won
decisively by England. Morgan and
Bairstow scored 17 off Southee before
Chris Jordan comfortably closed out
the game bowling at Seifert, Guptill
and Colin de Grandhomme. It cannot
happen again, can it?History suggests
another thriller
may be on cards
New Zealand have a
nasty habit of taking
England to Super Overs
- which they have lost,
writes Simon Wilde
All-round brilliance of Kiwis
New Zealand have the best average
ranking across the three formats.
Team Test ODI T20 Avge rank
New Zealand 114 2
England 421 2.33
India 243 3
Australia 336 4
Pakistan 562 4.33
South Africa 655 5.33
Bangladesh 978 8
West Indies 7810 8.33
Sri Lanka 899 8.67
Zimbabwe 10 14 11 11.67we can defy odds again, says Morgan
6 The bridge-building trip to Lahore
taken by Tom Harrison, the ECB chief
executive, has resulted in the agree-
ment of two extra T20s on England’s
tour to Pakistan next year.
Pakistan were infuriated when
England cancelled their tour to the
country last month but they will now
play seven T20 internationals in Sep-
tember and October before returning
in November to play a three-match
Test series. It will be England’s first trip
there since 2005.things we’ve done well throughout this
tournament, probably our strongest
point has been the resilience within our
squad to be able to find a way to move
forward and forge on.”
Although Morgan was keeping his
final decision about who will replace
Roy at the top of the order close to his
chest, it is expected that Jonny Bairstow
will move up from No 4 to open along-
side Jos Buttler. Sam Billings is the
favourite to fill the vacant space in the
middle order.number of big-name players missing
from our squad and that’s continued
both pre-tournament with Sam Curran
and into the tournament with Jason
Roy and Tymal Mills,” Morgan said.
“Other guys have found something else
within themselves to either try and fill
that gap or contribute in a different way
to the team.
“You can’t really replace that
experience that Jason has: he’s played
integral parts in our two previous
World Cup campaigns. [But] of all the
England have placed more trust in
their two spinners during the
tournament so far.
Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid have
bowled 47 per cent of deliveries
during opponents’ powerplays, a
proportion that only Afghanistan’s
spinners have exceeded.
Rashid is England’s leading
wicket-taker with eight, followed by
Ali and the pace bowler Tymal Mills
with seven.
By contrast, New Zealand’s two
spinners — Mitchell Santner and Ish
Sodhi — have bowled only seven per
cent of their team’s powerplay
deliveries at the World Cup.
Santner has been a good weapon
against England in previous T20s
between the sides, taking nine
wickets at 16.1, the lowest average
of any New Zealand bowler
against England.Ali and Rashid
in powerplay
Anyone for a
Super Over?
England need to
improve in field
boundaries during their 50 overs,
provoking delirious scenes at
Lord’s. Remarkably, it was only four
months later when England settled
a five-match T20 series in New
Zealand with another Super Over
triumph, this time in a much more
one-sided way, scoring 17 to New
Zealand’s 8.
If scores are level after 20 overs
today, the match will also be
decided by a Super Over.England’s 50-over World Cup final
triumph over New Zealand in 2019
famously concluded with a Super
Over that, like the innings that
preceded it, ended with the scores
level.
England won the tournament
because they had scored moreEngland’s fielding standards
dropped considerably in their final
group game, against South Africa,
in which defeat did not prevent
them from qualifying top of the
group.
England’s fielding under captain
Eoin Morgan has generally been
outstanding, as it was at this
tournament before the last game.
Their catch success rate is 90 per
cent, second only to Australia (92
per cent).
Devon Conway, who has taken
over as New Zealand’s wicketkeeper,
has been consistently excellent
throughout the tournament.
England will need to return to their
usual high level.2
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Tim Southee
(New Zealand)