So farewell Brendon McCullum, at least as far as Test cricket is concerned. He hasn’t necessarily been a red-all legend; most of his greatest achievements have come in limited-overs. And yet he retires from the five-day format as the man with New Zealand’s highest score (302), the most number of Test sixes of anyone in history (107) and, courtesy of his first innings onslaught at Christchurch, the fastest ever Test century, eclipsing Viv Richards’ 30-year milestone of 56 balls.
Sadly for his Black Caps side, there was to be no winning finale to his 101-cap career. Australia are on a ruthless unbeaten run at the moment, winning seven and drawing two of their last nine matches en route to the number one world ranking.
New Zealand’ s 2015 progress may have run into a green-yellow brick wall, but for the Aussies, this was another excellent couple of performances. McCullum apart, this short series was all about the Australian top order making hay with the bat. Warner flopped but Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Adam Voges and skipper Steve Smith each made hundreds.
At the age of 36, Voges can claim a career average of 95.5 from his 15 Tests. Since the start of December, he has racked up 684 runs in just five outings, including two double-centuries and dismissed only twice. Sir Don who?! But can he and his colleagues repeat this kind of form in Sri Lanka this summer? Probably. They then host South Africa and Pakistan which will probably cement their position at the top, especially given the way the Proteas played at home to England.
As for the English, they went from Test heroes to one-day zeroes in just a few weeks. Becoming only the second side ever to lose a five-match ODI rubber from a 2-0 lead wasn’t anything to shout about. De Kock struck two centuries but the familiar De Villiers/Amla axis polished off the decider.
And yet the ace batsman of the series was Alex Hales, the man who I always descrie as grossly over-rated! Well, I haven’t changed my mind with regard to Test cricket, but he passed 50 in each of the five innings in South Africa. Joe Root matched his two hundreds but his genuine world-class is well-known. Before his embarrassing fumblings a week or so later, Reece Topley emerged as the top bowler from either side, which is encouraging for England’s one-day summer.
The T20 contests were not really significant, regardless of the forthcoming World Cup, but SA will be delighted to come out on top. Eoin Morgan did nothing to enhance his shaky international reputation and none of his bowlers showed much consistency. But this Twenty20; one all-out attack from a De Villiers or Morris can transform an economy rate from 6 to 10 in a matter of minutes. This is not really a proper World Cup warm-up but it raises more questions than answers for England.
