The Black Caps celebrate a wicket. Photo / Photosport
The Black Caps celebrate a wicket. Photo / Photosport
Three things we learned from ODI II.
1. Ugly New Zealanders?
Not long ago the results of a Wisden study were published that "proved" the Black Caps were no longer the angel-faced choir boys of international cricket. The study even found that your average Australian cricketer was morelikely to help an old umpire cross the road with his shopping than a New Zealander: a finding that came as an embarrassment to both countries.
While New Zealand's offences are at the petty crime end of the scale compared to felonies like taking an orbital sander to a ball or punching the opposition's best batsman in the head on a night out at The Walkabout, there is a trend emerging, which continued at Hagley Oval.
In the space of a few balls there were two incidents that warrant, at the very least, some quiet contemplation from manager and former cop Mike "Roman" Sandle.
The first occurred when a piece of Kyle Jamieson caught-and-bowled brilliance was denied, sadly but probably correctly, by third umpire Wayne Knights.
Jamieson is not a (quite) rookie any more. He's played enough in the spotlight now to know that the cameras will be trained on him in DRS situation when he is not only the main protagonist, but literally head and shoulders above his teammates.
His little fit of pique when the decision was announced was just a little bit, erm, babyish.
Jamieson has been a revelation. His aggression at the bowling crease brings a dimension to the Black Caps that should be cherished and nurtured (and you have to love how his next ball was delivered at 142kp/h, considerably higher than the previous).
There is, however, a big difference between aggression and petulance.
Kyle Jamieson. Photo / Photosport
As for the next incident, you have to give Jimmy Neesham the benefit of the doubt and say he didn't mean to hit Bangladesh captain Tamim Iqbal with a shy at the stumps after fielding off his own bowling.
That Tamim was the survivor of the Jamieson "catch" in the previous over was incidental, as was the fact that Neesham is one of the better fielders in world cricket and probably hasn't missed a three-stump target by that much at close range since he played in shorts.
These things happen when you're off balance and he had the good sense to look contrite after he cracked the batsman on the arm, though Tamim was less inclined to accept it.
(For the record, in the second innings Mohammad Saifuddin hurled one in the direction of the stumps in his follow through and succeeded only in hitting a disinterested Devon Conway.)
Neesham probably had more reason to throw than most because Tamim was crabbing up the wicket, but the bowler's throw at the stumps is an increasingly lame part of gamesmanship and without the benefit of accurate stats it seems like the Black Caps do it more than most. It never gets anybody out, is potentially dangerous and comes across as macho posturing.
Neither of these incidents comes close to a diplomatic crisis, but team leadership might want to think about how they come across on the field.
While there was a small section of the public who thought New Zealand's good-guys international image was an affectation, there's a much greater portion who have taken great pride in not only this team's performances, but the humility they have demonstrated along the way.
Neesham and Daryl Mitchell are better and more reliable batsmen than Colin de Grandhomme, yet the latter must come straight back into the white-ball formats when fit.
Neesham (0-73 off 9) must be hanging on to the fifth-bowling option by a thread.
Jimmy Neesham and Colin de Grandhomme. Photo / Photosport
He has not demonstrated an ability to contain international-class batsmen with his lively medium pacers and the sample size is too big to call it bad luck. Whatever trickery he is selling – which appears to be cross-seamers – the batsmen aren't buying.
Mitchell (0-8 off 1) hasn't been able to contain batsmen at List A level, so it's no surprise he is yet to win trust at the bowling crease from his Black Cap skippers.
Neesham and Mitchell are excellent cricketers. Neesham oozes talent while Mitchell has taken to international batting with an ease that has been mightily impressive.
As bowlers, it might be better to lower the sights; to use them as golden arms to try to buy wickets, rather than expect them to bowl quotas.
3. There were demons in the field
Hagley Oval is as close to billiard-table flat as you get in a cricket ground, so there was no excuse for the sloppy ground fielding yesterday.
As for balls in the air, perhaps the sight lines in those bucolic surroundings are trickier than at other grounds because the catching was awful.
Normally excellent fielders like Mitchell and Trent Boult shelled fairly simple catches by their high standards, while Martin Guptill looked perplexed when catching one of the simplest chances of his career (though he was looking into the sun).
As for Bangladesh, they dropped their best chance to win a match in New Zealand. Simple as that. Mushfiqur Rahim's snatch at a Neesham nick was unacceptable, while impressive spinner Mahedi Hasan's spilling of Tom Latham an over later was, if anything, worse.
In all, it was a troubling final 15 overs for Bangladesh, who fielded in blindfolds and adopted a bang-it-in-short bowling approach to Latham, New Zealand's best back-foot player.
As excellent as the stand-in skipper was, Bangladesh butchered this match.
