Cricket Almanack keeps on keeping on

Provides valuable perspective on state of NZ game

No matter how much the shape of cricket changes, some things remain the same.

The Plunket Shield may be half-completed by the start of December, Twenty20 cricket may dominate peak interest periods of the game, and international cricket can pop up anywhere during the season.

But the New Zealand Cricket Almanack continues to provide all the retrospective information about the past season to put what can be an often confusing mish-mash of formats into some order.

So it is with the 2020 edition, the 73rd, the result of fastidious toil by long-time editors Francis Payne and Ian Smith.

Just how much scheduling has changed is clear from the international opponents faced during the coverage period of the 2020 Almanack: Sri Lanka, England, Australia, and India. This for a country that once struggled to attract any home match play at all.

That's for the men's game, but the women also hosted South Africa and took part in the Twenty20 World Cup.

The situation could have been even more crowded had the game not been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic that resulted in men's series against Australia, Scotland, Netherlands, Ireland, the West Indies and Bangladesh abandoned.

Fittingly the Basin Reserve was the venue of New Zealand's 100th Test victory, a 10-wicket win over India. The win was the 20th by New Zealand at the ground, eight more than the next most successful venue, Seddon Park in Hamilton.

Frailties were exposed on the Test tour of Australia when they lost the three Tests. 

The long-awaited return to the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, the first since 1987, was flawed by a bad choice at the toss. That resulted in a 247-run loss. That followed a 296-run defeat in the first Test in Perth and a 279-run loss in the third Test at Sydney.

The highest score New Zealand managed in the series was 256 in Sydney, their fifth innings.

This disappointed in more ways than one. The results did little to make Australians sit up and take notice of the quality of their Test match rivals across the Tasman. There appeared little determination to seize the moment for the benefit of the New Zealand game – a not uncommon fault across New Zealand's cricket history.

Only one New Zealand batsman, makeshift opener Tom Blundell, scored a century. The Australians, by comparison, scored four. It has to be wondered if the diet of reduced format cricket is affecting the necessary technique of players to succeed in the still relevant longer forms of the game. 

The relevance of Blundell's effort was notable for the fact it was only the fourth time a New Zealand batsman had scored a century in the fourth innings of a Test match.

Compounding the technical debate is the fact that across nine Tests, the best average by a batsman was the 46.83 by BJ Watling with Tom Latham second on 40.53.

Ross Taylor was just behind on 39.30, but to be successful in Australia, and other leading countries, New Zealand needs to have more players averaging higher.

That need was reflected, albeit in a reduced 50-overs season of only four games, where the averages were much more impressive in the 75 per cent success rate of the side.

Bowlers Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner remain the cornerstone of the Test attack with Kyle Jamieson shaping as a potentially outstanding allrounder but of concern is that no certainty has emerged in the spin department.

The women's season was less successful with only a series win in the Twenty20 contests with South Africa. Eliminated before the playoffs in the Twenty20 World Cup they face a lot of hard work to be competitive in the 2021 World Cup. Sophie Devine was rated the women's player of the year with Jess Kerr the most promising.

Newly-qualified New Zealand player, South African-born Devon Conway was the Almanack's choice with Wagner as the players of the year.

Promising players were Henry Cooper (Northern Districts), Kyle Jamieson (Auckland) and Rachin Ravindra (Wellington).