England’s new-found aggressive approach to one-day cricket has won plaudits around the country. After all, everybody loves a slogfest, don’t they? If teams can smash 200 in a T20, then 350 to 400 should be the bar minimum we can expect in a full fifty overs, shouldn’t it?
Well, no, actually. Not that I’m saying I don’t enjoy witnessing a batsman clearing the ropes. At Cardiff on Saturday afternoon, I was unashamedly on my feet to celebrate each of Tom Cooper’s sixes – before the heavy drizzle and Messrs Duckworth and Lewis awarded the match to Glamorgan. Trouble is, I also enjoy seeing a bowler splatter the opponent’s stumps, but the balance has shifted too far away from the latter for my liking.
I didn’t follow the IPL at all this year because I find its manufactured ‘entertainment’ boring, too predictable. At least, over fifty overs, you know that Jos Buttler, Ross Taylor, Ben Stokes and co are taking a calculated gamble when deciding to take on class bowlers like Tim Southee and Trent Boult.
Before this series, I think it was Paul Collingwood who described England’s World Cup strategy was ‘prehistoric’. Ironic that it took the arrival at the ECB of the ultra-cautious ex-captain Andrew Strauss to change things around, even if New Zealand adopted that method a while back, to great effect. The Durham man should know about the way they used to play. He top-scored and took two wickets in England’s first ever T20 international, a drubbing of Australia ten years ago this week. He also became the only England skipper to win a major global trophy in 2010.
However, not even Colly was alive when England first met NZ in an ODI. The Black Caps played and lost a short Test series here in 1973 and also met for a 55-over fixture, officially only the sixth ODI in history. It may seem odd now but it took place in at the St Helens ground in Swansea.
If you thought England’s scoring rate Down Under was poor, take a look at the way most nations played in the early years of international one-dayers. New Zealand leader Bev Congdon won the toss and decided to bat, which soon looked a poor decision. The England pair of Geoff Arnold and John Snow left NZ reeling at 15-4 before Glenn Turner (26 in 69 balls) and Vic Pollard (55 in 112 balls) steadied the ship. Nevertheless, they were bowled out for 158 with thirteen balls remaining. The scoring rate? 2.99 an over!
Did England set out to knock off the runs quickly and take a massive mental lead over their opposition in the 2-match competition? Not exactly. Our main batsman was, let’s face it, Geoffrey Boycott! He adopted the same style that he always did in Test matches and ground his way to 20 runs in 88 balls before being caught. Perhaps surprisingly, his opening partner Dennis Amiss played the good cop to Boycott’s bad. He went on to score a century – already his second in this format - and England won by seven wickets. The tally of sixes was four. Half of them came from the bat of a 21 year-old called Richard Hadlee, the younger brother of the more established Test pair of Dayle and Barry.
The next encounter came in the group stages of 1975’s inaugural World Cup at Trent Bridge. Again, England’s line-up would make Cook and Bell resemble McCullum and Warner, but at least Boycott had made way for Amiss’s Warwickshire big-hitting partner John Jameson. Amazingly there was another individual century to admire, courtesy of 31year-old Keith Fletcher. His only ODI hundred included 13 fours. The total of 266-6 off sixty overs was considered a very tough target back then, and Richard Hadlee’s twelve overs had cost a terrible 66 runs. He was also out for a duck as his side faded to 186 all out from the final ball. Fortunately NZ persevered with the all-rounder, who went on to become a cricketing legend. Amiss accumulated more than 50,000 runs in all cricket and neither nation have yet to win the game’s premier trophy as first the West Indies, then Australia, then the Asian trio learned how to succeed.
New Zealand did finally get one over England over here, in the 1983 World Cup. Hadlee RJ took 3-32 and scored 31 in 45 balls but it took Jeremy Coney’s sensible 66 not out to secure victory off the penultimate delivery from Paul Allott. The rate of 4.2 an over was hardly mesmerising, and when Stephen Fleming’s NZ beat England at Bristol in 2004, not even Andrew Flintoff’s 106 could lift the rate to five an over. Jacob Oram struck the winning boundary off….Paul Collingwood. There were 52 fours and three sixes in that game. Call me prehistoric but I’d rather that than the other way around. It made those three shots into the crowd all the more special.