Five talking points for the Black Caps' T20 series against Pakistan
ANALYSIS: New Zealand are back in Pakistan for the second time in three months.
The Black Caps will play 10 white-ball games – five Twenty20 matches, followed by five one-day encounters.
The ODIs will capture most of the focus with this year’s World Cup just six months away and the tourists seeking a solution to the absence of injured skipper Kane Williamson.
Here are five major talking points ahead of Saturday morning’s (4am NZ time) T20 series-opener:
Tim Seifert’s pending arrival
When the batter-wicketkeeper discovered the due date for the birth of his and wife Morgan’s first child, he likely didn't feel the need to consult the Black Caps’ calendar for any clash.
Before getting the call-up for the T20 series against Sri Lanka, Seifert hadn’t played for New Zealand since November 2021. Devon Conway had assumed the opener-keeper role in the format while Finn Allen joined him at the top of the order.
But the 28-year-old took full advantage of the absence of a string of first-choice players being involved with the IPL – including Conway and Allen – by hitting 167 runs in three innings, with a thumping strike rate of 177.65.
He did ride his luck at times and while a World Cup spot is massively unlikely – he’s played just three ODIs, in January 2019 – further success in Pakistan would have put him back in regular contention for the T20 outfit, with another World Cup on the horizon in 2024. However, Seifert will have to wait until later this year for his next opportunity after being unavailable to tour.
Chad Bowes’ chances
The rookie opener – aged 30 – didn’t set the world on fire against Sri Lanka, but showed some glimpses of how cleanly he strikes the ball and his intent to score rapidly.
He went cheaply twice in the ODI series but could get up to 10 more opportunities to impress in Pakistan, starting with the T20 series. Is still another one-day World Cup long-shot, but that could change by early May if he racks up the runs and the option of moving Conway down a spot increases in appeal to Gary Stead as a solution to the Williamson injury.
Henry Shipley and Ben Lister’s bags of tricks
Both pace bowlers are still fledglings at international level.
There were times against Sri Lanka – particularly in the one-day format – that the tall right-armer from Canterbury showed he could be a wicket-taking weapon with his bounce and movement, while the Auckland left-armer appears to have useful variations and may often be used in the death overs in Pakistan.
But as both discovered in their first taste of bowling in the white-ball format on the subcontinent early this year when going for double-digit economy rates, restricting batters away from home will be a next-level test of their abilities.
Pakistan’s returnees
The Black Caps came close to victory twice against their hosts in their two tests over Christmas/New Year before ending up with a 0-0 drawn series.
But that was against a weakened Pakistan side.
The home team’s white-ball unit for the 10 upcoming matches looks a lot tougher, boosted hugely by the return to fitness of pace bowling spearhead Shaheen Shah Afridi. The left-armer was out of international cricket for more than four months after re-injuring a knee in the T20 World Cup final.
Shaheen took 2-24 from his four overs in Pakistan’s semifinal win over New Zealand and will be joined in the T20 and ODI squads by captain Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, who did play in the tests versus the Black Caps but were rested for the T20Is against Afghanistan last month in Sharjah, which saw Pakistan defeated 2-1.
Tom Latham’s workload
The absence of Williamson – who would have missed the Pakistan tour anyway with IPL commitments if not injured – and Tim Southee has put Latham into an unusual spot.
The 31-year-old has played just 21 T20s for New Zealand since his debut in June 2012, with his last involvement prior to the home Sri Lankan series being a forgettable lost series away to Bangladesh when he took charge of a second-string squad, and acquitted himself well with the bat in low-scoring affairs.
Latham’s T20I strike-rate is just 107.52 but his leadership and ability to play spin is likely to see him feature heavily in the five games, with no other obvious captaincy option. Spin-bowling allrounder Cole McConchie – whose T20I experience is from that Bangladesh tour – and wicketkeeper-batter Dane Cleaver (seven T20Is versus Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands) may be Latham’s stand-ins.
Stuff NZ
