Mark Richardson: Moral victory may suffice for confidence
5:30 AM Sunday Feb 10, 2013
Martin Guptill. Photo / AP
There is an urban legend among players from the mid-1990s that a national coach stood in front the team before they took to the field and urged them not to lose by too much.
It's easy to laugh at that and say "how dreadful", but over the last few years, I can sort of see where this supposedly mythical coach was coming from. There was not much faith in the team he had and public expectation was low, so a decent fighting loss would have been a win in a way.
So what do we expect from our team in this English series? For me, that's a hard question to answer. I mean, what is acceptable?
We know that we can compete in the short forms but do the Black Caps have to win those series? Then, how will the test results flavour the series in general?
What is more important? Is it right to place all the emphasis and importance on the forms that the team is best at and has the most chance of winning - the limited over games? Or, given the convention that test cricket is the most important form, does that carry the weighting?
It's probably a tough schedule from this perspective because the test series comes last. It is the crescendo of the summer. Unlike in South Africa, they won't have the luxury of ODIs to soften the blow should they revert to form in the tests.
So, on my rationale, the tests become vitally important to the success of this tour and the public relations boost this team needs. But is it foolish to pin my hopes on something we're least accomplished at?
The good news is that they can lose every test, closely, and still come out okay. A drawn test would be great but one win would make the pain go away.
I believe the T20s and ODIs will be 2-1 affairs. Whether that scoreline is to England or to us, I don't care too much and can't really predict either. I do know 2-1 to England will be tolerable if, and only if, there is consistent fight shown in the test series. However, the goodwill of a 2-1 result to New Zealand in the short forms will be eradicated should they get three hidings in the tests.
So now start to worry because I am a believer that T20 and ODI cricket, the way ODI cricket is played now, is doing little for our players' test games. Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum, James Franklin, Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson, BJ Watling and Trent Boult are key men in the ODI and T20s but are important cogs in the test team, too.
Guptill and McCullum have technical issues to iron out, as does Williamson around off stump - but they have a main diet of T20s and ODIs to get ready for the tests.
Taylor just needs batting but how much of that will he get in the shorter forms? Watling is going well in tests but I pray he doesn't lose his longer form rhythm.
But that's life. I sure as heck can't pull these guys out of the slog-and-bash for my own selfish test cricket infatuation.
It's easy to laugh at that and say "how dreadful", but over the last few years, I can sort of see where this supposedly mythical coach was coming from"
It isn't myth - it's true. It was Glenn Turner before the last ODI on the 1995 tour to India:
"I asked the others on our management team what they thought of me telling the team that they were going to get their a**** kicked by India. It's common for sides to put in a poor final performance (at the end of a tour), sometimes simply because they have already gone home, had lost focus. I said, 'I'll try and use reverse psychology and let them know how they'll feel if they fail through not being able to focus on the job at hand'. If I alerted them to the likelihood of a bad result it could harden their resolve to do well. That was the theory. I didn't mind if their response was to say, 'We'll show the b******' and they performed out of dislike of me and my remards. The others agreed, were happy for me to try it".
Glenn Turner, Lifting the Covers (1998), p 117
The reality of the matter is that I always knew that there were far better competitors out there who put in way more effort into the sport than I was prepared to do. However, I did my very best hoping that maybe they would trip up and let me through.
Some wins were truly earned, and some events I trailed the field by an embarrassing margin and skulked out of sight. But the point of the matter is this. No real competitor aims for a Bronze or Silver. It's the Gold that counts. If one loses out, it's because the other guy is better and not because you didn't try.
the game plan even in 20-20 is to come out and start hitting sixes cold... the result is often three swings-and-misses followed by a boundary and then holing out the next the ball... those swings-and-misses are wasted singles... if you can score 5 singles an over and hit one bad ball to the boundary you're going to be at around 140/2 or 3 by the 15th over- that's a hell of a platform and that was how the english played it...
the awful thing is they're playing this way in all formats... and McCullum is fixated on one win... that's not building a champion team...
another thought, i thought cricket teams generally consisted of 5 batsmen, 5 bowlers and a wicketkeeper... only new zealand's desire is to field 5 wicketkeepers, 5 bowlers and a batsman.