Tom Blundell celebrates yet another strong second-innings score. Photo Photosport
Tom Blundell celebrates yet another strong second-innings score. Photo Photosport
Dylan Cleaver provides five takeaways from day four of the first test between the Black Caps and Pakistan.
Second Innings Specialist
Tom Blundell's career is mostly in front of him but he has an unusual stat for a top-order batsman. After nine tests he averages a smidge more than 40,a highly respectable figure. Curiously, though, his second innings average (49) is significantly higher than his first (34.62).
An indication of how atypical it is can be found by comparing it to the benchmarks of the New Zealand batting lineup.
Kane Williamson's first and second-innings split is 56 and 48 respectively; Ross Taylor's 50.8 and 39 and Tom Latham 48.4 and 33.7.
He could have puffed out his average a bit more on day four but had his castle disturbed when charging Mohammad Abbas. Such unselfishness would have gone down particularly well with the man who replaced him at the crease, Williamson.
Vale John F Reid
The late Reid was a fine player with an outstanding record who owned a couple of statistical oddities himself. For a start there was the fact that more than half his 11 first-class centuries came in tests.
He also had a first cousin who had a brief but brilliant test career. Unfortunately Bruce Reid did all his damage playing for Australia.
Reid bats during an ODI versus the West Indies in Sydney in February 1985. Photo / Photosport
Reid was not related to New Zealand legend John R Reid, who also passed away this year.
Some of the crowd found new ways of entertaining themselves, timing themselves to do a lap of the 680m Bay Oval concourse. Their efforts were greeted enthusiastically at the finish line. Most participants took on the challenge barefoot.
As one clever clog mentioned, the punters who organised the challenge did more for kids' sport in a morning than Sport New Zealand has done in a decade.
ICC Brain Fart
Does anybody at the International Cricket Council actually follow cricket?
To a modicum of fanfare, the ICC announced their teams of the decade this week and while these things are manufactured nonsense – the teams will not play anybody, or even assemble – there were two selections that cannot go through to the keeper without comment.
Steve Smith and David Warner are fine batsman; two of the greats of the game. But do you know what else they did this decade? They blatantly cheated. Even in Australia, where gamesmanship is celebrated, they cried foul. They were both suspended for a year.
Former Australian Test captain Steve Smith during the cheating scandal in 2018. Photo / Photosport
As contrived as these teams are, there should have been no place for either. If anybody at the ICC had been taking notice of what's been going on this past decade, they would have understood that.
Bavuma Brain Fade
It's a slight diversion from beachside Mt Maunganui to Pretoria, but the goings-on at the Boxing Day test at Centurion cannot be ignored.
Temba Bavuma, on 71, slashed at a wide one from Sri Lanka's Dasun Shanaka. As soon as keeper Niroshan Dickwella takes the ball, Bavuma has tucked the bat under the arm and walked off. All well and good, except Bavuma not only missed the ball, but he missed it by a long way.
It was a stunning development that caught his coaches by surprise, judging by their looks of bewilderment as the camera panned to them. There was even the suggestion he should stop and review the decision – but there was no decision to review other than the batsman's decision to walk.
