Hamilton test: Wrapping Up

Ten days is a long time in world cricket. Work commitments meant I couldn't get down to blogging about the remained of the first test, and the second, and a lot has happened since then. Which is a bit like saying a lot had happened during Nelson Mandela's time in prison.

Dale Steyn has recovered his mojo, Graeme Smith has gotten just a little more cocky, Tim Southee has slipped down the bowling pecking order, Mark Gillespie and Daniel Flynn are suddenly valuable additions to the test side, and the New Zealand management is both helpless and confused.

But anyway, here's an effort to sum up the Hamilton test:

5 FOR NOTHING, AND THE STEYNLANDER SHOW: The first couple of sessions of the test mirrored NZ's batting effort in Dunedin; openers gone for not-much, McCullum and Taylor blunting the South African attack and then throwing it away against the run of play, and Philander looking unplayable throughout. But this time it opened the floodgates, and 133-2 became 133-7 as the kings of collapse outdid themselves. The Steyn-Philander duo had well and truly stormed the fort. It was Wasim-Waqar in the 1990s all over again.

Not since Glenn McGrath's final days in test cricket can I remember someone bowling at 130k feared as much as Philander. However, Dale Steyn had been ordinary upto then and, unfortunately, I fear this collapse was the moment NZ played him back into form. Our batsmen have no answers, but these two are bowling so well in tandem that the opposition seems irrelevant.

RETURN OF THE MARK: Gillespie's 5-for in the first innings was the one positive, and a crucial one considering how Tim Southee's contributions have been almost nonexistent all summer. While he will be expensive and routinely send down rubbish (some of it was on view at Hamilton), Gillespie offers the attack some penetration - his strike rate in his short test career is 39 balls, compared to Martin's 59. There could be an effective test bowler in him yet.

The bowlers have responded strongly in both tests, enough so that the series has been watchable. But we still lack the killer blow, and AB DeVilliers with the help of the tail cashed in, and once again a position of parity was squandered. Frustrating also to see that Ross Taylor thinks exactly like most modern captains when it comes to dealing with tailenders.

VETTORI IN FURTHER DECLINE?: Daniel Vettori V3 (tests-only non-captaining batting allrounder) has been underwhelming so far. Bowling wise, the fizz seems to have completely gone and the best he has managed against the Saffers is to tie up an end. Never mind that he's never been a factor anyway in the second innings. By playing four pacemen, NZ seem to have acknowledged this, and as a result it has really weakened the lower-order batting. It wouldn't matter as much if Vettori was scoring runs, but he's finding life at no.6 extremely difficult against this attack - consider how he was bounced out by Kallis. Is this simply a routine struggle against his least-favoured opponents, or are the signs pointing to a test career on its last legs?

DRS GETS SHOWN UP: Was I the only one who felt that LBW against Ross Taylor looked atrocious? Taylor and Kane Williamson were ressurecting NZ carefully after a terrible start in the second innings, Steyn got one to reverse viciously and strike Taylor on the boot in what appeared to be the front of leg-stump, and NZ's last bid for a recovery was snuffed out. It's been revealed that the ball would've shaved the leg stump anyway (which is a bit hard to believe), but coming to the larger point, the DRS malfunctioned and got things completely wrong. It's always surprised me how quick players and observers have been to come out in defence of the DRS, aand I can only conclude the idea of machines making the weighty decisions is a source of comfort for a great many.