It was a tough day at the office for Tim Southee again but the promoted Black Caps captain didn't have to be the last person turning off the lights at the Cake Tin in Wellington. Photo / Photosport
It was a tough day at the office for Tim Southee again but the promoted Black Caps captain didn't have to be the last person turning off the lights at the Cake Tin in Wellington. Photo / Photosport
Well, some things simply don't change even if you flick from one TV channel to another or drift from one season to the next.
I caught a glimpse of the Blues comfortably leading the Chiefs 19-5 at halftime only to stumble 37-29 at the final whistle. More on that, no doubt, later in the Super Rugby season.
My preoccupation, though, is with the Black Caps getting the mixture horribly wrong at the Cake Tin as India fumbled, stumbled and still licked the spatula all the way to another super-over victory — by a wicket — to lead the Twenty20 cricket series 4-0 in New Zealand.
You're not sure whether you want to laugh or cry but you tend to see the irony when an Indian fan holds up a crudely constructed banner that simply reads: "Windia, Loseland."
India skipper Virat Kohli celebrates victory from the jaws of defeat after a classy dead-bat two-run to put the pressure back on the Black Caps in Wellington. Photo / Photosport
It was cruelly the same scenario but a different day. Same tired, old bowling tactics from Tim Southee who also had the benefit of wearing the stripes after regular captain Kane Williamson was rightfully rested — shoulder injury or not.
No one begrudges Southee wearing his heart on his sleeves or, as coach Gary Stead put it, puts the collective ahead.
"Tim sticks his hand up. He's very much a team-first player. He missed on a couple [deliveries] and if one hit the guy in the boot we wouldn't be having this conversation.
"That's the fine margins of the T20 game," Steady had said in the veteran opening seamer's defence in Hamilton.
Commendable, indeed, but what do you do when nobility starts becoming a liability. It seems Six-pack Southee's flights of fancy trump collectiveness.
At what stage do you save the Northern Districts bowler from himself, considering he has fronted up five times in a super over and come away shy in the last four times.
You see, therein lies the difference between Southee and India coach Ravi Shastri, again, walking out to ensure captain Virat Kohli wasn't going to overlook death merchant Jasprit Bumrah.
Bumrah, who had unwittingly made mediocrity a mate in India's two-wicket super over victory at Seddon Park on Wednesday, had shown why he his pushing for world best.
The stiff-arm slinger was the most frugal, going for five an over in Wellington, atoning himself in his allotted four overs but, yet again, his high-risk, short-ball deliveries over variable yorkers were bamboozling in the super over.
New Zealand got the super over batting right despite Colin Munro's iffy start in regulation play but fellow opener Martin Guptill would have been a shoo-in had he not had a horrible collision with Scott Kuggeleijn as they swept the boundary for a catch. (Tom Bruce's run-in with Daryl Mitchell a few balls later makes one wonder who, if anyone at all, is making a clear call so the other withdraws).
Tom Bruce takes a catch on the boundary but tumbles as he avoids a nasty collision with Daryl Mitchell near the boundary. Photo / Photosport
Shreyas Iyer and Lokesh Rahul grassing two catches off Munro in the super over didn't help but there is a case for India easing in a genuine wicketkeeper in newbie Sanju Samson who seems to have the potential to be a bolshy opening batsman.
Southee, on the other hand, had registered seven an over on a night when it was blatantly obvious leg spinner Ish Sodhi and left-arm slow bowler Mitchell Santner — who also had exorcised his catching demons in snaffling Rahul, fellow opener Samson and first drop Virat Kohli — were the go-to men.
However, it's imperative to note Santner's wicket, No 6 Washington Sundar, was a rabbit who also had a night to forget with the ball as a tweaker.
Pre-match No 4, Stead had alluded to the relative inexperience of his bowling stocks but, ironically, persisting with a vicious cycle of not exposing them, thus leaving them in the dark while carrying on with a failed experiment that raises eyebrows. Some would call that the definition of insanity.
Sure, T20 is always a lottery and there's no argument, again, the game was lost when New Zealand couldn't convert a run-a-ball, drive-in order to a marginally better rate to pull themselves out of the doldrums.
Take a bow man-of-the-match Shardul Thakur for his last over that yielded three wickets but whose erratic starts can't be good for the fans' ticker. Fellow new-ball merchant Navdeep Saini also had tightened the screws in the penultimate over.
What did Stead, Williamson and a smiling Southee exchange in the dugout before the super over?
It wasn't the successive six and four from Rahul that had defined the game in the super over but Kohli's tease to mid-on for the two smart singles with Samson to turn the pressure back on Southee and the fielders. It was a blunt statement that you don't always have to close your eyes to heave the ball out of the park for a result. It was about cricketing smarts.
I would have gone for Manish Pandey at first drop but India will be richer for having exposed Samson to the electric atmosphere for the future.
Southee's throw-down first offering went for six but the second was horribly short and had drifted down leg side but, luckily, Rahul had mistimed for a four before holing out to Kuggeleijn at deep backward of square leg.
"There's something new I've learnt in the last couple of games," Kohli said after another emphatic victory from the jaws of defeat. " ... when the opposition is playing that well, you've just got to stay calm and observe what's happening so if the opportunity comes your way then you capitalise on it to try to make the most of it."
It was refreshing to learn from the grinning skipper that he had consulted Rahul to deviate from a super over blueprint to promote himself over Samson to endorse his experience was the difference.
It's de javu time as India erupt into celebration as Mitchell Santner trudges off after the tourists tied the T20 match before clinching it in another super over. Photo / Photosport
If India were guilty of enigmatically ticking singles in Hamilton they were equally culpable of throwing their willows at everything in the capital city without reading the wicket well, bar Pandey's 50 not out.
Kohli went through an appraisal of sorts on his season rookies in what appear to be glorified open-wicket practices for the tourists in the dead rubbers.
What of the hapless Kiwis who, metaphorically speaking, need a concussion test?
Let's face it. The psychological blows didn't come in the super over — predictably Southee's menu was obvious — but from Thakur's knuckle-ball sandwiches.
" ... after the last game's win, we all learned something — you should never lose hope," said Thakur in deservedly claiming the individual gong, before adding India were mindful dot balls and wickets were imperative to put the pressure back on the Black Caps.
Will the hosts pass the IQ test in the fifth and final T20 at Mt Maunganui tomorrow — which will mutate to another mock exam, especially if India rest more marquee players — or will insanity reign?
Somehow you get the feeling just any sort of victory won't cut it to stop the giggling India juggernaut from steamrolling everything in its path.
Mitchell Santner exorcises his dropped-catch demons in snaffling three key wickets but his bowling and batting are still work in progress. Photo / Photosport
