Out with the old, in with New Zealand?

New Zealand and India, now competing for the first World Test Final, were both latecomers to the Top Table. India was surely always going to get there, but New Zealand? They were poor relations. As far as their nearest cricketing neighbour was concerned, they were relations to be ignored. Australia simply could not be bothered to play them.

There was a Test in New Zealand in March 1946. Playing on a rain-affected pitch, Australia won by an innings and 103 runs. Australia’s 199 for eight declared was enough to secure victory, and that was that for another 20 years.

England and the MCC were not quite as ruthless. During 1929-30, there was a tour of New Zealand, and four Tests were played. In fact, only three were scheduled, but the first two days of the third were lost to rain, so an extra game was added. Still, the mood may be gauged by the New Zealand captain’s decision to send England in on that only day of the third Test so that the crowd could have the pleasure of seeing the visitors bat. The young Indian, K. S. Duleepsinhji (Ranji’s nephew), obliged with what Wisden called “a dazzling exhibition of strokeplay.”

Thereafter, England tacked on a couple of Tests in New Zealand after an Ashes series in Australia. In 1933, as light relief after the Bodyline Tests, Wally Hammond hit 227 in the first match and then 336 not out in the second.

More than thirty years later, Len Hutton’s side was fresh from beating Australia and bowled New Zealand out for 26. Wickets were shared by Fank Tyson, Brian Statham, Bob Appleyard and Johnny Wardle – England has seldom fielded a better attack.

Still, by this time, the strictly amateur New Zealand cricket side could often hold their own. When they toured England in 1949, all four Tests were drawn. They were three-day Tests. It was a glorious summer, a batsman’s summer, and they had two great or near great left-handers, Martin Donnelly, who made a Hundred in the Lord’s Test, and Bert Sutcliffe, who made one at Old Trafford and more than 2000 runs on the tour.

Alas, it would be a long time before they started winning Test matches. Indeed, they did not beat England till 1977/8. They always had a couple of top-class players and a team that usually fielded brilliantly; equally, five or six of the team were not really of test match quality.

This was not surprising. New Zealand’s principal domestic tournament, the Plunkett Shield, offered only a handful of first-class matches a season. Their first Test win came against the West Indies in 1956; it had taken 29 years and 45 matches, but, significantly, eleven of these Tests had been played in the previous twelve months. Players often experience defeat before learning how to win.

From the late sixties, after overseas players became eligible to play for English counties. Many New Zealanders took the opportunity to play professionally and develop their game. Three were outstanding in the next twenty or thirty years.

The first was Glenn Turner. He came to Worcester as a young man with a good defence, a power of concentration, and a few strokes. He made a lot of runs, but very slowly. He blossomed when he started one-day cricket, twice the leading batsman in an English summer. Not only is he one of the select few to have scored a hundred first-class hundreds; for New Zealand, in 41 Tests, he made almost 3000 runs at an average of 44.

The second was Richard Hadlee, who was genuinely fast. Then he came to England, dropped his pace a trifle, shortened his run and, even in the era of the great West Indian and Pakistani quicks, was the most respected and dangerous New Ball blower in England. Twice he was the leading wicket-taker in an English summer. For New Zealand, he took 431 wickets at an average of 22.

Then there was Martin Crowe, who shone for both Somerset and New Zealand with 17 Test centuries and an average of 47. He was a classical batsman, encapsulating what Neville Cardus once wrote about Tom Graveney: “If by some sad chance all that we know of batsmanship was lost and forgotten, apart from perhaps one surviving video of Martin Crowe, a study of it would allow you to reconstruct the art and craft of batting.”

So well before the end of the twentieth century, New Zealand cricket had won respect. The Kiwis were recognized as hard and fair opponents. Then under the astute captaincy of Stephen Fleming, himself a very fine bat, and the bespectacled left-arm spinner, Daniel Vettori, they became formidable in the short white-ball forms of the game.

Even so, ten years ago, you wouldn’t have expected them to be appearing in this final. Indeed, even six or seven years back, they were on a sad run of defeats. Then things changed abruptly. After the harsh and unceremonious sacking of the captain, Ross Taylor, they handed the reins to Brendan McCullum.

Improvement didn’t come overnight. In fact, McCullum’s tenure started badly, but he brought a new mentality to New Zealand cricket. The risk was worth taking. Mistakes weren’t criminal. Learn from them, and attack, attack, attack. He gave his bowlers attacking fields with lots of close catchers. Sometimes his settings recalled the Carmody field that Australia set for Lindwall and Miller with the new ball in the 1940s: a ring of gullies, slips, leg-slips and short-legs, almost nobody in front of the bat. One recognized in McCullum the same philosophy of the game as animates the All Blacks, and it worked; he was marvellous.

His successor, Kane Williamson, is very different. Cool and quietly reflective, whilst being determined and inspirational. He thinks things through, and for six or so years, he has been one of the three or four best batsmen in the world. Then they have a fine seam attack, two great opening bowlers in Tim Southie and the left-handed Trent Boult.

Test matches in New Zealand still have something of the old amateur days, especially when played in old-fashioned cricket- grounds such as Dunedin, where spectators lounge on grassy banks. The modern game has made the players battle-hardened pros; they’re in demand for the lucrative IPL and other T20 cups and leagues.

Fear not, they play Test cricket in a style uncorrupted by the short forms of the game. In the two recent Tests this summer, their batsmen’s technique was markedly more orthodox and successful than that of their English opponents.

India will indeed have been the bookies’ favourite when the teams took the field on Friday. After all, they have come from beating Australia in Australia and England in India.

But, but, but… by the time this is on the screen, the game’s balance will favour one or the other. Much as I love and admire Indian cricket, it would be great to see New Zealand as World Champions. It’s been a long and hard journey.

Moreover, it would give their cricketers unaccustomed bragging rights. They would be what the All Blacks currently are not: World Champions. Not that Kane Williamson would brag; nothing more than a soft smile and a polite nod of acknowledgement, I suspect.