Maybe it’s the stroppy fast bowler in Ollie Robinson that makes him speak his mind, but it is rare for modern cricketers to be critical on delicate matters; in this case England’s pink-ball Test against New Zealand in Mount Maunganui this week, cyclone Gabrielle permitting.
Introduced eight years ago, pink-ball Tests, which start in the afternoon and run into night, are meant to offer more convenient hours to those watching, whether at the ground or on TV.
Floodlights are used, hence the need for pink balls (red being difficult to see and white already used in limited-over formats), but Robinson say these are unnecessary gimmicks made redundant by England’s exciting brand of Test cricket.
He has a point. In any case, cricket’s three main formats need a point of difference and having one played entirely in daylight hours, as originally intended by the game’s inventors, seems fair enough.
Some administrators see it differently, especially at cash-strapped New Zealand Cricket for whom Test matches have long been loss leaders, hence the reason England are playing just two this series.
This pragmatic approach to Test-match scheduling seems more than a little defeatist, especially as Brendon McCullum, England’s head coach and one of the facilitator’s of Bazball, played 101 Tests for New Zealand. Unlike so many of New Zealand’s best cricketers, not for him the easy flight to T20 franchise leagues, though he did play in some of those as well.
He and Ben Stokes, England’s red-ball captain, clearly cherish Test cricket and want it to flourish. Just as Steve Waugh did before him, McCullum realises the premium placed on entertainment by modern audiences and the pace at which they expect play to proceed; which in Tests is a scoring-rate of at least 4.5 runs an over.
Crucially, for those who still admire grace in a batting stroke, it is not just T20 hitting (clear the front leg and swing hard) adopted over a longer period though, inevitably, there is some of that as well. New Zealand were the first to feel the brunt of Bazball last year when they were whitewashed over three Tests by Stokes’ England. Maybe a pink ball under lights, a combination which has proved tricky for batsmen on the previous occasions it has been used, is their best plan to counter it.
Having seen this approach before, and in full flow, they are perhaps best placed to find solutions for it, though with their ongoing diaspora of younger players to white-ball cricket they do so with an ageing side. Of New Zealand’s likely XI for Thursday, only two will be below 30. Contrast this with six of England’s team and it looks like old stagers trying to suppress youthful exuberance.
However it plays out, Australia, currently being dry roasted on turning pitches in India, will be keeping an eye on matters. Their first appointment with Bazball will be at Edgbaston in four months time with the Ashes at stake.
While any weaknesses exposed in New Zealand will be keenly noted, perhaps a pink-ball match in a cyclone won’t be the best way to judge matters.
Morgan will go down as one of finest leaders
What makes a captain great? I ask only because Eoin Morgan, a cricketer widely lauded as a ‘legendary leader’, has retired from all cricket to swap his bat for a broadcaster’s microphone.
Morgan, 36, captained England’s white-ball teams from 2015 until 2022, a period in which they have largely dominated, and continue to dominate, the world rankings.
Yet it is trophies which burnish a CV and England’s World Cup win in 2019, four years on from being serial losers, is what Morgan will be best remembered for.
England’s transformation from duds to dashers was wrought entirely on the proposition that players must adopt ‘no fear’ cricket, an approach Morgan had advocated since leaving Ireland for England’s greener pastures.
The best captains make plain their vision and Morgan, a fine batsman, gave his players clarity of role and purpose, and they responded. But luck plays a part too and had Trent Boult not made a hash of a boundary catch in that 2019 final at Lord’s, or had Martin Guptill’s throw from the outfield not rebounded for four off the back of Ben Stokes’ bat, England would not have won the World Cup – and Morgan would not have clinched the trophy that true greatness demands.
But that alternative reality did not occur and Morgan, whose visionary leadership has shifted by a quantum leap what is possible for teams to score in 20 and 50 overs, will go down as one of England’s greatest captains and with a trophy to prove it.
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