Evolutionary biologists have noticed that in small, closed ecosystems, such as isolated islands, animals evolve differently to what they do in larger places. So the nature of what animals exist on some islands, particularly New Zealand, the Galapagos Islands and Madagascar are very different to what can be found on continents.
New Zealand, for example, had no land mammals, so insects had evolved that fulfilled the role that is played by mice and rats in other places. Giant seed eating insects, known as wetas, crawled around the forest floor, cleaning up things that fell to the ground. The only predators were birds of prey, so some birds were flightless.
The ecosystem still functioned, but it did it in a very different way, and produced very different animals.
Likewise, New Zealand’s unique pitches and climate have produced cricketers with different skills to those in the rest of the world, and that difference has helped make New Zealand a formidable place to tour.
The New Zealand bowlers have often been described as "pop-gun" and the term "dibbly-dobbly" was first coined describing New Zealand's line up. But what looks mild from the outside is actually a result of Darwinian evolution in terms of the way that the game is played.
Tim Southee is a perfect example. Very few Australian grade cricket teams would think about picking a bowler who generally bowls at his pace. He would be told to go away and get stronger – that he needs to develop into a faster bowler. And yet, despite his slow pace, he has a bowling average in Tests is under 30, and is ranked in the top 10 bowlers in the world.
His game is perfectly adapted to the conditions that he plays in the most. He can adjust his speed to get the ball to swing just enough to take the outside edge. As a general rule, the faster you bowl, the later the ball swings. If he bowled a bit slower, he would go past the edge. If he bowled a bit faster, he wouldn’t get the edge. But instead he has developed the ability to just do enough.
New Zealand is a paradise for swing bowlers. There are three things that tend to assist swing: a cross wind, cloud cover and the right sort of outfield to either keep the ball in good condition or scuff it up greatly. New Zealand regularly has all three.
Most pitches in New Zealand are oriented North-South. The most common winds are from the south-west or north-east. As a result, an inswing bowler will often have a wind that comes from behind them and helps bring the ball in, while an outswing bowler will tend to bowl into the wind more often, but they will get a bit more swing as a result. This has led to New Zealand’s fastest bowlers tending to bowl inswing (Shane Bond, Lockie Ferguson, Chris Martin, Trent Boult and Adam Milne are all examples of this) while the bowlers who bowl into the wind tend to swing the ball away more often (Simon Doull, Iain O’Brien and Tim Southee have all fallen into this group.) This is not by design, but rather a product of the environment that they have played in, both growing up and at domestic level.
The pitches tend to be green, so the bowlers get used to bowling into the pitch, but still up on a fuller length than what most bowlers outside New Zealand bowl on. This also means that the batsmen have tended to develop a slightly different technique to cope with those conditions.
To combat the swing and seam, New Zealand opening batsmen tend to have a smaller gap between bat and pad than batsmen from other countries. A young batsman playing a cover drive away from the body is likely to get told off for the shot, and instead told to move their shoulder over the ball more, keeping the contact under the eyes. They take a big step towards the ball, but that is not possible without moving the shoulder in order to make sure the head is in the right position.
Virat Kohli was struggling with the moving ball outside off during this series, so he seemed to make a technical change, taking a larger step towards the line of the ball. However, doing that without getting the balance of his head right resulted in him being trapped leg before wicket twice. If he had spent longer learning to play that way growing up, he would have known the dangers of that shot, when to play it, and when not to. But Test cricket is a difficult place to debut a change in technique.
Tom Latham faced a few balls similar to the ones that got Kohli out. He hit them straight down the ground for four. It is not that Latham is better than Kohli, but rather that his technique is better adapted to the conditions.
That adaptation has made New Zealand a very difficult place to tour. Since the middle of 2012, New Zealand has won 20 matches at home, and only lost three. The only team with a better win loss record at home during the same period is India.
But the skills that work so well on New Zealand pitches do not always translate well overseas. Outside New Zealand they have only won 10 and lost 23 in the same time frame. Ultimately, New Zealand still has an overall winning record, but it is not anywhere near as impressive.
New Zealand’s home dominance has not always been the case. Up until 1976, New Zealand only won five home matches out of 56 (nine %). From 1977 to 1999 that increased to 22 wins out of 76 matches (29%). From 2000 until now, the ratio is 37 wins out of 84 matches (44%). There were two key differences that were made around 1999 that has had a massive impact on New Zealand’s performances. First the pitches were standardised with just three types of soil and two varieties of grass. This led to there being more consistency from venue to venue. Secondly, and probably most importantly, the Plunket Shield, the national first class competition, was made into two full rounds of four day matches.
The change to two full rounds meant that players were playing more domestic cricket, against a higher standard of opposition than club cricket. Players were having to play more matches to prove themselves, and the selectors were getting more opportunities to watch players. Even though the Hagley Oval has only been hosting matches regularly since the Christchurch earthquake destroyed Lancaster Park in 2011, every player in the current New Zealand side has played a number of matches at the ground. That brings a degree of familiarity with it, and that familiarity helps the players find plans to counter what the pitch offers.
Having more matches on the same grounds, effectively speeds up the evolutionary process whereby New Zealand has been developing unique cricketers to play the same game in a very different way. The New Zealand way of playing does not always look threatening, but in New Zealand, it can be deadly.
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