Cricket: That's the trouble with Harry

By Richard Boock

Needless to say, after about a decade-long hunt for quality at the top of the New Zealand cricket team's batting order, we are now being offered a back-up player whose batting average is as small as his bowling average is large.

And it's not Chris Harris' fault. The Canterbury jack-of-all-trades (and master-of-none) might be an automatic selection for one-day internationals.

But last month's suggestion - that he was picked for the test series in India as a top-order batting option - is starting to look as ludicrous as it first sounded.

Addressing the reason for Harris' inclusion in the test section of the tour party, coach David Trist said at the time that he was unconcerned about the 29 year-old's record against spin, that he thought Harris was a better batsman than his record suggested, and that he could be used as an option at No 3 in India if the necessity arose.

Well, it has. And the trouble, as far the top-order is concerned, is that Harris cannot bat to save himself.

His three innings so far in India have realised a grand total of seven runs, and all of those were scored in the one knock against Karnataka.

Like a new-born foal on rollerskates when facing the twirly stuff, Harris went first ball to offspinner Harbhajan Singh in the match against a Board President's XI, lasted 15 balls while scoring seven in the first innings against Karnataka, and then went for another duck in the second innings - this time against the left-arm orthodox spin of Sunil Joshi.

In 33 test innings he has already fallen to spin merchants Shane Warne (three times), Tim May (twice), Adam Huckle (twice), Kumar Dharmasena, Don Anurasiri, Rajindra Dhanraj, Mushtaq Ahmed, Jayanandra Warnaweera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Paul Adams and Phil Tufnell, while scraping together an average of 19.65.

The upshot is that now, with Matthew Bell's test record against India starting to mimic Ken Rutherford's against the West Indies, the tour selectors find their main choices for the second test limited either to persevering with the young opener, or reversing Stephen Fleming's recent shift from No 3 to No 4.

The latter option would at least free up Craig Spearman for opening duties, but remains an unlikely move as Fleming has already declared his satisfaction with No 4 and hit his highest test score for two years while batting there in the first test.

Trist has hardly made a lie of his parting comment before the squad departed for India, - "whatever happens, Fleming won't be batting at No 3" - with the New Zealand skipper so far coming in at Nos 4, 5 and 9.

But maybe if the selectors had opted to leave Harris at home until the ODIs there would have been room in the test squad for Central Districts' No 3 Mathew Sinclair, whose CV includes 823 first-class runs at 58.78 last season, including a double-century against Northern Districts and a century against Auckland.

Surely even Roger Twose would have been a better bet.

The most likely second-test scenario now seems to involve no change at all in the top order, with Bell again being asked to combat an Indian attack which has had much the better of previous exchanges.

The Wellington right-hander has made consecutive test scores against India of 4 and 0 (at Wellington), 0 and 25 (at Hamilton) and 0 and 7 (at Mohali) - of which his worst display was undoubtedly the 25, when he took 70 minutes to get off the mark.

Thank goodness we've got Harris.