Cricket: Guppy can join the big fish

Reporter·Herald on Sunday·

21 Nov, 2015 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Martin Guptill has been a champion in the one-day game but his test career has been inconsistent. Photo / Getty Images

Martin Guptill is being encouraged to bring his one-day approach to the test game.

The Auckland batsman's numbers in test and ODI cricket are starkly different.

He's a champion performer in the short game, and has been since his century on debut against the West Indies at Eden Park six years ago.

But his test game has been inconsistent over the course of his 35 matches since walking out against India at Hamilton in 2009.

His maiden test hundred also came in the Tron the following year, when he and Brendon McCullum pulled New Zealand out of a jam. They were 158 for five against Bangladesh but put on 346 for the sixth wicket - then the third-highest all-time partnership for that wicket.

Since then, two New Zealand stands have risen to occupy first and second spots on the world table for that wicket - McCullum and BJ Watling in the wonderful saving of the test against India at the Basin Reserve early last year; and then that in turn was overtaken by Watling and Kane Williamson's unbroken 365 against Sri Lanka on the same ground early this year.

Guptill's other ton came in Bulawayo in 2011 (109 against Zimbabwe).

His most consistent series was in the West Indies in 2012, with scores of 97, 67, 71 and 42, but the up-and-down results caught up with him. Guptill was left out of the test side for two years from May 2013 and only made his way back in for the tour to England in the middle of this year.

He could hardly be ignored in that euphoric post-World Cup stage.

After all, Guptill had been one of the stellar performers in the tournament, hitting more runs than any other player (547 at 68), including the second-highest score in ODI history - his stunning 237 not out against the West Indies on a sunlit afternoon in Wellington. Talk about hammering on the door.

He went to England and scored two seventies and two ducks in the tests at Lord's and Leeds. Add in the two Australian tests on this trip, and he's scored 204 runs in eight innings (average 25) since his recall.

It doesn't square with his rousing batting when in coloured clothing - his ODI average is 41.16 with nine hundreds; his T20 average is 32.13 in 52 games - but New Zealand batting coach Craig McMillan is backing Guptill to flourish in the test game in the near future.

"He's spent a fair bit of time at the crease and I don't think he's too far away from closing the gap between his one-day game and his test game," the former international batsman said.

At Brisbane, he was caught at third slip off seamer Josh Hazlewood for 23 - 72 minutes, 58 balls - and caught at slip off spinner Nathan Lyon for 23 after a marathon 186 minutes and 133 balls as New Zealand sought to bat out a day-and-a-half to save the match.

In Perth, he played around his front pad to be lbw to quick left-armer Mitchell Starc for 5, then became Mitchell Johnson's 313rd and last test wicket, jabbing a lifting delivery to short leg for 17.

Long-time Guptill watchers battle to square the clean-striking batsman who is ranked 68th in tests - behind an avalanche of less-gifted players - with the player who sits 16th in the ODI game and who can be as punishing as any of those above him.

"We've talked to Gup and encouraged him to play similarly to his one-day game," McMillan said.

"There's not a lot to change in the way he should play. I don't think he's far off producing some of the innings we know he can at the top of the order."