Australia vs New Zealand, Trans-Tasman Trophy 2015: Why the Kiwis did not win

With all the festivities surrounding the historic day-night Test between Australia and New Zealand over, it is now time to study the reasons why New Zealand, despite a strong fight and heaps of talent in their team, lost the Trans-Tasman Trophy  0-2. New Zealand, having had a terrific year across formats, were looking good to fight it out with an Australian side which was inexperienced and going through transition.  Vishal Mehra lists out the reasons why New Zealand could not match up to the expectations they promised. ALSO READ:  Steven Smith, Brendon McCullum praise success of day-night Test cricket

Batsmen fail: New Zealand, coming into the Test series, had a batting line-up boasting of batsmen like Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson and Tom Latham. With such a heavy duty line–up, everyone expected them to go all guns blazing. But the opposite happened and they could not prevent a series defeat.  Even the maverick in McCullum could not make any notable difference. Guptill, who a high of the fantastic 237 in ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, was one of the biggest disappointment of the series for New Zealand averaging only 13.66 in 3 games. Another player who looked out of form has been BJ Watling, who played well at Lord’s (61*, 59) when Black Caps toured England. His only contribution came in the first Test match scoring 32 and 16 in respective innings.

Add Cricket Country as a Preferred Source

Bowlers breaking down:  Coming into the Test series, there was hullaballoo over the combination of Tim Southee and Trent Boult wrecking havoc on the Australian batsmen with their swing and seam. Southee and Boult had been a sort of revelation for Black Caps cricket since the World Cup. The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 group match between both the sides at Auckland was a great example of how the Australian batsmen struggled against swinging deliveries. But all one could see was Boult and Southee being taken apart by David Warner, Usman Khawaja and a few others in the first two Tests at Brisbane and Perth respectively. An injury to Southee in the first Test didn’t help, which forced  a handicap for the visitors. Mark Craig was good in patches but could not consistently pick wickets for New Zealand. Doug Bracewell too let his side down, managing only seven wickets in three Tests. Jimmy Neesham, who was out from the second and final Test due to injury, did not help the Kiwis cause as well. QUIZ: How well do you remember the first-ever day-night Test?

Alien Much: New Zealand would have expected to get slightly familiar conditions and pitches on which their bowlers could make a mark. But it all proved to be a damp squib. The series began at Brisbane, where the pitch was supposed to assist the bowlers. But Australian batsmen racked up more than 500 and New Zealand were out of the contest. With their pace and experience, Australians bowlers did manage to outdo the flat pitch, picking 20 New Zealand wickets. The WACA at Perth, known to be one of the quickest and bounciest pitches in world cricket, turned out be anything but scary, with both team easily scoring 600 plus runs in their first innings. Adelaide proved to the most helpful pitch for the bowlers, more so due to the fact that ball moves around a little more under the lights. Boult managed to create some impact during those hours.

Misplaced Luck: Going ahead, heading into any series, New Zealand would want a little more luck on their side.  If not for luck, New Zealand could not only have drawn the series but also gone one step ahead to have won it to everyone’s amusement. McCullum just could, could have pulled off a historic win at Brisbane chasing a mammoth 503 for victory on Day 5. McCullum had been in his blistering best, smashing the red-ball to all parts of the ground and just then his or his team’s luck ran out. Mitchell Marsh, having bowled a short ball earlier, straightened up his line and appealed for a catch when a ball beat McCullum’s inside edge and looped to slip via the pad. Nigel Llong gave McCullum out caught wrongly; merely two overs before New Zealand’s supply of DRS appeals were to be replenished by the second new ball. Two overs were the only difference between the Black Caps snatching victory or picking up a well-deserved draw. ALSO READ: Australia beat New Zealand by 3 wickets in first-ever day-night Test at Adelaide

Brendon McCullum’s captaincy in the first and second Test seemed lacklustre and sluggish in parts.

Let’s fast-forward to the historic day-night Test at Adelaide Day 3. Australia, tottering at 118 for 8 needed more 84 to over come New Zealand’s lead. Debutant Mitchell Santner, bowled the 54th over of Australia’s first innings, Nathan Lyon tried to sweep one. The ball took a featheredge on its way to slip. Umpire S Ravi gave it not out, but a confident McCullum reviewed it. When the Hot Spot showed a nick, even Lyon himself started walking.

To everyone’s shock, the man in power — third umpire Nigel Llong — ruled it not out or one can again say luck outdid the Kiwis.

In hindsight, New Zealand, with hopes of millions of cricket fans riding on them to defeat the Australians, did manage to provide fun, enthralling, dynamic (at times) and self destructive style of cricket to the audience viewing the series. With Sri Lanka visiting the Kiwi islands, now it’s time for the Black Caps to show and prove their detractors wrong once again.

( Vishal Mehra is a reporter at CricketCountry, who enjoys his weekly dose of anime and plays cricket once a white moon. His twitter handle is @vishal_oxyjinn.)