AUS vs NZ | MCG Day 3 Talking Points - New Zealand’s inadequacies and Australia’s smiling troika
New Zealand put themselves in a mess after a stinker of a batting performance at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today and there seems to be no way out of it. The inadequacies with which they came to Australia are all coming out to the fore as is Trent Boult’s demon in alien bouncy pitches.
New Zealand suffer the wrath of their own inadequacies
As India demonstrated last year, there is a golden rule if you want any sort of success in Australia - kill them with their own medicine. For a major part of Perth and Melbourne, New Zealand followed the arc as far as their bowling is concerned but batting-wise, well, it was a story the less said the better. New Zealand batted like sub-continent teams used to bat, more recently Pakistan, in Australia, only to be owned by the combo pack of James Pattison and the ever-so-excellent Pat Cummins.
With the G offering sufficient amount of bite to the pacers, especially to the ones who could get to bounce the ball on a regular basis, New Zealand either batted with keeping cover and occasional late cut in mind - a deeply faulty tactic. Add to that, they played to the line of the ball with zero damn given to the lengths, and you shouldn’t be surprised how New Zealand were “Wagnered” by them. This brings in a question. Was New Zealand prepared enough to take on a team like Australia in their own backyard? Playing the Boxing Day Test in Australia for the first time in 32 years was a massive occasion for the Kiwis but what is ailing them now?
After some questionable decisions regarding their progress in Test cricket, with all three leading spinners failing to understand the craft of turning the balls, their batting line-up, which boasts of two of the sport’s greats, have made their progress fairly slower. It was all bottomed up at the MCG, with the last England series seeming like a distant memory. The Kiwis have been all but owned but not only because of Patrick “excellent” Cummins but also thanks to their own inadequacies.
Australia’s pace attack - a happy bunch of kids
Wind the clock back to the times of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz - all ferocious, no square given, none taken. They celebrated their wickets wildly and created a fear in the opposition camp as a statement of their dominance. Amidst the culture review, bans and sanctions, Australia somehow found a new identity but what hasn’t changed is their ambition to put everything on the line and go for the kill - albeit with a smile on their face.
Pat Cummins is the Brett Lee reincarnation with added string that makes him the best in the world, Mitchell Starc can create angle and arc with the ball that would put a painter to shame, Pattinson is just a happy-go-lucky pacer who doesn't think much about the future but ready to weave magic with the ball for that one ball, nevermind when will he pick up an injury. The show the trio put up at MCG today was an ode to that happy-go-lucky faces - a symbol of their dressing room harmony and how much they enjoy just being a part of a group and complementing each other.
While James Pattinson made the new ball talk, with batsmen often getting squared off against each other, Cummins was cut from a different cloth, ensuring the ball pitched exactly where he wanted it to land. Starc, despite being mighty effective, was happy to go slow and take a step back to let his younger colleagues have their day under the sun. So much has been talked about India’s emergence as a pace superpower, probably we should accord this Australian unit in the same vein.
Is Boult as good as we think he is
Trent Boult has been at the centre of several hinge points in New Zealand cricket history, playing the role of spearhead in both of their World Cup final appearances. This is as good a reminder to see his talent through a glass of uncertainty that Boult is one of their all-time greats, and that tag will never be diminished even if he retires today. That, however, can be challenged if you add the red-ball filter to it, with Boult being noughts overseas, not doing enough of what he is touted to do.
With a career average of 28.01, Boult stands apart, especially the way he brings early control in the helpful conditions in New Zealand. But over the years, the returns have not remained the same in the away conditions. Take Australia for example - he was supposed to be the main man - yes, even with the presence of Neil Wagner in the line-up - but before he was ruled out of the squad, he’d put up two unimpressive displays to take his average to 41.69. You might not have figured that out earlier. Add to that India and South Africa, Boult has been absolute noughts in three countries, with England being the only other country where he’s stood up to his potential.
Calling Boult a slack would be unfair too, for the fact that he has taken way too much burden on his shoulders for the longest in all three formats of the game. But in the cruel world of pace bowling, you are going to be judged on the basis of what your contemporaries are doing. Even when Mitchell Starc was not doing well, he still bowled better than Boult on the road; Mohammed Shami, Pat Cummins and Jasprit Bumrah are making some crazy inroads in modern-day cricket. Sadly, Boult is dropping himself to a tier that none of us had hardly envisioned.