India vs New Zealand | For me, opening the batting wasn’t much of a change, says Henry Nicholls
New Zealand batsman Henry Nicholls has revealed that shifting from the number six spot to an opener was not that big a change for him on a personal level. Nicholls scored an unbeaten 30* against India in the fourth ODI which saw the home team register an impressive eight-wicket win at Hamilton.
New Zealand registered their first win in the ongoing five-match ODI series against India on home soil as they beat the visitors by eight wickets at Seddon Park earlier this week. India, who were without star pair Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, were bowled out for 92 which allowed the hosts to play easily as they chased down the target in 15 overs.
One of the changes in the Kiwi line-up was at the top of the batting order, which saw number six batsman Henry Nicholls being promoted to the opening slot ahead of Colin Munro. Nicholls played
"The coach has talked me a little bit about it being an option throughout the summer. We knew it was going to happen a couple of days out. For me, it wasn't too much of a change. I've done it for Canterbury quite a bit. It's just making a bit of a mental adjustment that you're going to have a bit more time to bat than usual. It's something I enjoyed doing," Nicholls was quoted as saying by Cricinfo.
"When you open you have a lot more certainty around the situation you're coming into," he said. "Batting at six has helped me a lot in my game in terms of the situation always being different when you're coming in. Either you're trying to rebuild the innings, or you're trying to finish off an innings. Getting back at the top where I usually bat at Canterbury and coming through the age-groups is something I enjoyed doing. And having Martin's experience there certainly helped me as well," Nicholls told ESPNCricinfo in an interview.
Nicholls, who has an average of 35.60 at a strike-rate of 87.42 from 37 ODIs, was pushed up the order as Gary Stead chose to leave Munro out of the starting XI. This was the first time Nicholls had opened in ODIs for the Kiwi national team.
However, the 27-year old batsman has opened in nine List A Games for domestic side Canterbury and averages 77.57 in List A cricket. Interestingly, Stead was coach of Canterbury when Nicholls opened for them back in 2014 and 2015. The Kiwi chief coach added that he was not surprised that Nicholls managed to play so smoothly at the top of the batting order.
"Part of our campaign plan for this Indian series was to look at options at the top of the order, and Henry Nicholls has been a bit of a fix-it man across a number of areas. I know from my time when I was coaching Henry at Canterbury that he had opened before … so it wasn't a real surprise to me that he could do this.
"In terms of the future and where we go, who knows at this stage. Colin Munro is certainly in our plans; I think it's likely that Henry will get another go in the short-term though. After that, who knows, there's selection we still need to go through. Colin Munro, it certainly isn't the end of him, but we've talked about things and we've worked out some areas of the game we want to keep seeing Colin improve in," Stead added.
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