Chris Martin walks

If Martin Crowe is the best international batsman New Zealand has ever produced, Chris Martin is the worst. The latter has now called time on his New Zealand career.

Never mind Martin was a number eleven! He will be remembered for his thirty-six blobs, in an era of boring multi-purpose tailenders where - heck - even Glenn McGrath scored a Test fifty! And McGrath, even the proud Australians will agree, was marginally better than Courtney Walsh with bat in hand.

Never mind that Martin finishes with 233 Test sticks, third only to the great Sir Richard Hadley and the  versatile Daniel Vettori among bowlers from the land of the long white cloud! He will bring to mind the nicknames 'walking wicket', the amusing 'phantom' or the downright ghastly 'the walking wicket'. Producers of Japanese horror films can take a walk.

Heck, I do not even remember  Chris Martin's bowling action. I do, however, recall that he once scythed through an Indian top-five including Tendulkar, Sehwag and Dravid for below fifty aggregate runs in the second innings of a Test match in India some years ago. New Zealand could still not win the Test as Harbhajan Singh of all people flayed a Test hundred. More serious men must have thought the world cruel, not Martin, I don't think.

Shane Bond, as the co-author of this blog might say, was badass and brilliant at the same time. Less Dale Steyn than Steyn due to a Zaheer-esque physique, statistics and for being a leader without a compelling support cast. Bond was, ahem, New Zealand's cricket's bowling Vinod Kambli; a fantastic could-have-been that fans world over like to imagine. Chris Martin on the other hand has been Kiwi cricket's has-been, a swing bowler of the kind English county cricket regularly produces. And despite looking like a willfully amusing version of Ralph Fienne's Lord Voldemort, Martin has spearheaded New Zealand's Test bowling attack when the country's international stocks have dipped to new lows. Good bloke Chris!

Personally, I have always loved seeing characters on the field. If Shane Warne is cast as the ultimate sorcerer and Chris Gayle as the cool guy next door with bat in hand, Chris Martin has been an entertainer who seems to not take himself too seriously, and who has thereby brought the meaning of sport right back into the game. For that alone, he deserves some Christmas cards every year. Philip Hughes may be sending one too because the next time he faces upto New Zealand he need not worry about "c. Guptill b. C. Martin' next to his name.

Goodbye, Mr. Martin. The glimpses have been fun, but I wish I had seen more of you.

PS: Here are two wonderful tributes to Martin, a poignant one by Iain O'Brien who had seen an elder brother in the retiree, and a more cheerful variant by Paul Ford.  

A battle's on at the Bellerive!

As I start to write this (14:42 hours HKT), New Zealand are 127-3, which is an overall lead of 141 over their Trans-Tasman rivals Australia, in the second test at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart. Playing a game that is as antagonistic to his nature as it is to Sehwag, the Kiwi skipper Ross Taylor is unbeaten on 35 off a hundred deliveries, steadily taking New Zealand to some semblance of safety. In what has been New Zealand's most secure display with the bat on this tour, the doggedness and the determination that has so often characterised New Zealand teams of the past has thankfully returned, and is clear for all to see. It will be wonderful, therefore, if the New Zealanders can make their final innings with the bat on the tour a series-levelling one. But whether that happens or not today's play has been yet another advert to test cricket, coming in the back of Australia's series-levelling triumph versus South Africa at Johannesberg and the enthralling tied-draw that India and West Indies played out in Mumbai.

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Although I joined live action only during the fading moments of the second session, I realised instantaneously that nothing had been 'fading' about the day's play. Dean Brownlie, the Western Australian who crossed over to New Zealand to give himself more chances of playing first-class cricket, might have been laughed at for saying yesterday that he considered 150 a good score. James Pattinson, with commonsense and the Australian bravado intact, had said that 150 is below-par on any type of surface. In the event, the New Zealander proved correct as Australia had been bowled out for 136 - reportedly their third lowest score against the neighbours, and yet another nadir for the troubled Australian batting line-up . The lead might have been greater had it not been for gritty lower-order efforts from Peter "thorn-in-the-flesh" Siddle and Pattinson, but New Zealand would have taken fourteen when the Australian innings started. At tea with all their wickets intact they led by 26.

The session that followed was test cricket at its subtlest and best. Under muggy skies the ball bounced over the stumps sometimes and kept low other times. And even if you had shut your eyes to the action, the first-rate descriptions from the Channel 9 commentary team (a post on whom will follow, another day) would have given you more than an adequate picture. Brendon McCullum left to a straightening snorter from Pattinson that pitched full, squared up the aggressor, got the edge and reached Hughes' at third slip, while Martin Guptill went to town flirting with a Siddle delivery that Boycott would have left alone even in his sleep only to see the edge taken by Haddin comfortably.

Then Ryder and Taylor resisted, the stocky man the more comfortable of the two, in spurts of attack as well as solid defence, and the diminutive skipper ungainly and ugly, playing across his front pad, opening himself too much because of his technique that compels the predominant on-sidedness of his strokeplay, but batting as if for the match and his life simultaneously. Edges were squirted to third-man, balls were left on bounce, Phil Hughes - ye, of great misfortunes currently - dropped Taylor at gully, a chance the young man may come to rue, and Ryder leant back on a front foot cover-drive through extra cover, majesty and elegance written in the stroke. And when it seemed like the Kiwis were on the road to safety, brilliance counterpunched them on the gut. Michael Hussey bowled a harmless leg side delivery, on which Ryder failed to get bat or pad. His front and back leg were switching places more in routine than as an effect of over-balancing, and Haddin whipped the bails off. A casual moment that appeared nonexistent had been converted into a wicket and Ryder was obviously stunned as he trudged back. It was ironic that Ian Healy who had castigated Haddin's keeping a week earlier was on air during the stumping. When Tony Greig asked him how much he would give for the stumping out of 10, Heals replied 10!

Kane Williamson arrived at Ryder's exit and played in a fashion that matched his test hundred on debut against India last year for composure if not style. Surprisingly, with Taylor playing the blocking game Williamson kept the singles and couples coming, putting bad balls away to the fence for good measure, releasing some of the scoreboard pressure his captain must have felt. Towards the end of the day the Sun came out, and it seemed like a congratulatory gesture from the skies to a New Zealand team that has done the hard work to get their noses in front from an impossible position, and will go into tomorrow with hopes of batting Australia out of the test. Ross Taylor apparently averages 77 whenever he crosses 30, and is presently on 42. But Taylor's conversion rate would not be Australia's only one worry.

There was one moment in the day which signified Australia's fall from greatness more than anything else, and it was befitting (or bitter, based on the view point) that one of Australian cricket's greatest and proudest sons provided it. Wrapped on the pad, this time by Tim Southee, the bat everywhere and mind nowhere, Ponting walked - just five to his name. The last time he batted at Hobart he had been dropped by Mohammad Amir on naught and had gone on to make 201, his last test hundred. There was no reprieve this time, nor a milestone as a consequence to celebrate it. After a sparkling performance with the ball and a brave and disciplined one with the bat on a day when the "test" in test cricket was on view for all to see, the Black Caps would be looking to put the issue beyond Australia's reach. They deserve no less. Daniel Vettori, the man whose services they would not have for a while, deserves no less either.

Scrappers, not LOSERS!

Daniel Vettori, bespectacled, more studious in appearance than sporting, seems like the sort of man and captain who has his heart in the right place. And it did not therefore seem like an exaggeration when he said, after the attrition-filled Quarter Finals victory over the Proteas, that a sixth semi-final berth at the cricket World Cup was an "amazing achievement" for a small country like New Zealand. You weigh those words in the context of where New Zealand cricket seemed to be headed a few months before the World Cup and they seem to acquire even more significance. And yet, New Zealand's being in the final four of the 2011 World Cup would surprise few who have followed the Black Caps' cricket with anything more than cursory attention. In a sport played by teams that usually boast two or three very good names, if not great ones, on whose reputations alone games sometimes sway, the Kiwis have always represented a study in the theorem "a team is more than a sum of its parts." How else can one vindicate the almost invisible consistency New Zealand, a team of batsmen who seem to bat to kill boredom and bowlers who (with the notable exceptions of Shane Bond, Sir Richard Hadlee and Chris Cairns in his prime) have at best bowled at medium pace, has maintained in major ICC tournaments?

My earliest memory of the New Zealand cricket team goes back to a pre-dawn telecast in Chennai of a cricket match between a team in yellow flannels (Australia, of course) and another in bright grey way back in 1992. On the day, the captain of the team dressed in grey, which I later learned was New Zealand, Martin Crowe, smashed a ton, giving Kiwis a victory over Australia in the inaugural contest of the Benson and Hedges World Cup. I recall that New Zealand were incredibly consistent during the league stages and played some thrilling and innovative cricket, with Mark Greatbatch heralding pinch-hitting in the first fifteen overs (before Sanath Jayasurya and Kaluwithara poached the badge in the 1996 World Cup!) and Dipak Patel opening the bowling consistently, the very first example of an international outfit starting with spin in one-day cricket on a consistent basis. New Zealand would bow out in their semi-finals clash against the eventual champions Pakistan but they had done much better than co-hosts Australia in the only World Cup to have been played in the region so far. That was the beginning of something remarkable from a team which has fielded men with normal skill but extraordinary well.

Almost two decades have gone by since the last World Cup Downunder and if anything New Zealand's share of match winners has only dwindled during the time. For a long time, the likes of Chris Cairns and Nathan Astle could lock horns with the best in terms of all-round abilities and batting respectively and come out on top. With a steady-minded, but not flashy, captain in Stephen Fleming and sparkling, but never consistent, performers like Craig McMillan and fill-in men like Chris Harris, Gavin Larson and Dion Nash, New Zealand still kept their place in world cricket there or thereabouts. Although one should not be too unfair to the names above, none of them, it seems fair to say, elicited the awe of a Tendulkar, the raptures a Brian Lara left, the stupefaction a Shane Warne commanded, the thrill an Alan Donald delivery triggered or the feeling of disbelief a Gilchrist innings left as residue among spectators and opposition alike.

Given that background, it is all the more creditable that the New Zealand team has hardly been trounced abroad (until recently), has been more than steady at home (once again until lately) with its persistent swing bowlers doing the job and has won a Champions Trophy. In fact, tomorrow's clash against Sri Lanka will be the Kiwis' fourth in a row at the World Cup after 1999, 2003 and 2007. No team other than the decade's best team, Australia, has even come close. You can have all the money in the world to get the best support staff and equipment for analysis (read 'India'); you can have the finest talent bursting at the seams on paper (read 'India', 'Sri Lanka', 'South Africa' and bowling talent in 'Pakistan'). But the great beauty of sport lies in its sleepy disinterestedness in history, records and the like and its knack of evening competitors on the day. It it in this connection that the Kiwi endurance in cricket tells its own unique story; not too attractive, but quite inspiring. 

Even as I was trying to find out how many World Cup semi-finals the Kiwis have reached before, I was surprised to find out that the one they play against South Africa tomorrow will be their fourth in a row. But even with New Zealand's blue-collared approach to the game, the slipping of some of their fine performances under the radar says a lot about the powerhouses of cricket (and their parochial aggrandisement of achievements by their players matched only by their humungous blind eye towards others' achievements) and how New Zealand has, like a wicket keeper who does his job so efficiently that he does not even seem to be physically present on the field, gone about its cricket with focus and without fanfare. Nowhere was New Zealand's taciturn efficiency more visible than their Quarter Final win over South Africa recently. If the Proteas' mid-innings pandemonium that eventually led to their loss was a typical South Africa reminding them of their psychologically brittle days, the Kiwis' resilience to shut the door and turn the key was also typical New Zealand - scrapping but stubborn. The signs had been there even when Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor, both men of belligerent ways, settled on more workmanlike ways of run scoring. In the end, the two batsmen's vigil counted in the final analysis as much as Oram's brilliance with the ball and Nathan McCullum's on the field. 

The New Zealand cricket team, which has never been large on ego, had stooped when it had to and conquerred the occasion when the opportunity presented itself. Here was a team that journalists targeted for having a soft underbelly, people teased and tauinted randomly on FB and twitter and the world at large seemed to have forgotten as a prospect worth reckoning in the World Cup. Here was a team that lost 4-0 to Bangladesh and followed it up with a 5-0 mauling at the hands of India in games that were intended to be prelude to the World Cup. Here is the only non-Asian team that has qualified to the pre-summit clash of the 2011 World Cup!

There was a muttering in some circles following the 5-0 defeat in India that the Kiwis did not bat long enough and John Wright, a man who knows more about "long batting" than most was appointed the national coach; Allan Donald took on the reins of the bowling which was never going to be Goliath slayers but which could with some aggression, in the words of White Lightning himself, go a long way. And the change in personnel seems to have worked like a charm. It needs to be kept in mind that a team's skipper and support staff are only as good as the on-field outputs and not efforts: but that is modern sport and harshness is its other name. Irrespective of what happens tomorrow, the Black Caps will be a happy lot.

The Kiwi vice-Captain Ross Taylor strongly believes that his team can reach the finals. Sri Lanka, with a ten wicket thumping of England under their belt and the chafing home conditions at the backdrop, may represent an altogether different proposition vis-a-vis South Africa with a known disposition to crumble under pressure. But the Kiwis will go into the match knowing that they have nothing to lose. Oftentimes, those without fear of defeat are like killers on the run: they can rubbish the odds, mutter a profanity and do something that defies credulity. Much of New Zealand cricket has been about de(i)fying commonsense and if it takes them all the way, few can grudge them the achievement.