Black Caps start tour with thumping win

A few enduring myths about the pink ball were exploded, but the mystery surrounding the new-look batting line-up Australia will take into the summer’s opening Test only deepened as New Zealand started their tour with an emphatic 102-run win over the Prime Minister’s XI in Canberra.

While the essentially ceremonial nature of a day-night 50-over fixture can’t compare to five days at the ‘Gabba where Australia has not surrendered a Test since 1988, there were sufficient signs of concern for the home team to indicate that record might come under serious threat.

The notion that the pink ball – which will be used in the final Test of the Commonwealth Bank series in Adelaide - was more difficult for batters to see than the traditional red version was effectively scotched when Black Caps openers Martin Guptill (94) and Tom Latham (131) put together a stand of 196.

NZ’s incumbent Test opening pair could hardly have been more impressive, with Guptill tempering his 50-over power-hitting game to ensure he acclimatised early to Australia conditions.

And left-hander Latham added to his growing reputation as a pint-sized powerhouse at the top of the order to deservedly earn man of the match honours in a game dominated throughout by the tourists.

 

WATCH: Latham rules Canberra with classy ton

Even though few others in the tourists’ line-up got going, their total of 8-307 was imposing at the end of 50 overs and unreachable 10 overs into the Prime Minister’s XI pursuit, by which stage their scoreline of 3-13 suggested an end to new PM Malcolm Turnbull’s honeymoon run.

Fortunately for the Prime Minister, by that stage he had left the capital and was attending to matters of state in Sydney.

What caused significantly greater angst for national selection panel chair Rod Marsh, who was watching from Manuka Oval’s Bradman Stand perhaps thinking he had left such woes behind him in the UK at the end of the Ashes, was the process and personnel involved in that early collapse.

The three casualties were those pushing hardest for the vacant places in Australia’s Test line-up, openers Usman Khawaja (0), Cameron Bancroft (1) and Joe Burns (5) with only Bancroft able to argue an unplayable delivery as mitigation. 

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Burns chopping on // Getty Images

The Black Caps openers, whose only blemish across 30 overs came when the total was on 20 and Guptill was caught at deep square leg from a free hit after a Peter Siddle no-ball, had struggled for timing early in the day on a slow, flat pitch but had no obvious problem sighting the pink ball.

But when the Manuka floodlights – regarded among the best in Australian cricket – came into effect, the local Test aspirants found there is a major discrepancy between seeing the ball and hitting it in the middle of the bat.

When it is swinging at pace, as the previous incarnation of Australia’s Test top order found to their discomfort during the recent Ashes loss.

Khawaja, rated by many a shrewd judge as the man who might bat at No.3 in Brisbane, flayed flat-footed with a flourish (if not the finish) of Brian Lara at left-armer Trent Boult’s fourth delivery and saw the resultant edge fly waist-high to second slip.

In the next over, Bancroft – at short odds to replace Chris Rogers as David Warner’s new opening partner – narrowly failed to jam down on the sort of late-swinging yorker from Tim Southee that would make Mitchell Starc smile and had his stumps rattled and his belief shaken.

And Burns, vying for a spot down the order should the selectors decide to make a full generational change and cut veteran Adam Voges adrift, was perhaps the most culpable when he aimed a bold square drive far away from his body to Boult’s late in-dipper and dragged it on to the wicket.

Suggestions that the glowing pink ball was much tougher to see under full floodlights than in mid-afternoon were dismissed when the ageing eyes of 35-year-old Voges (55), 40-year-old PM’s XI captain Mike Hussey (15) and his 38-year-old brother David (8) all outscored their younger, higher-order teammates.

Watch: Voges defies Black Caps attack

The fact both Hussey brothers fell to skied catches attempting to up the run rate employing fraught cross-bat shots on the sluggish pitch also put paid to theories that outfielders would struggle to judge the pink orb.

As some had feared with the day-night first-class format, umpires were forced to find a replacement pink ball after just 30 overs of use during the Black Caps.

That was not the result of blemish or dysfunction with the new-look Kookaburra four years in the perfecting, but rather the result of Guptill clouting Ashton Agar beyond the roof of the Bob Hawke Stand with the ball last seen headed up Canberra Avenue towards Parliament House.

And the whispered theories that the ball that will be used for the first time in a Test in the historic day-night fixture in Adelaide starting November 27 neither swings nor seams was quashed when Southee and Boult got it move marginally but tellingly, albeit only for a handful of overs.

Among the local attack, left-armer Jason Behrendorff was the only one to find appreciable swing after NZ skipper Southee won the toss and batted, and while Peter Siddle bowled his usual immaculate length he found little assistance and finished with 1-54 from his 10 overs.

Indeed, of all those looking to push their claim for next week’s first Test team announcement it was Voges who stood alone with his measured, assured half-century off 74 balls before he advanced to left-arm spinner Mitch Santner and was bowled through the gate. 

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The pink ball at night // Getty Images

One-time Canberra boy Ryan Carters (74) was the only other member of the local line-up to show some batting steel, adding another chapter to his unusual PM’s XI history that shows his previous appearance in the annual fixture was as a stand-in ‘keeper for NZ when they last played here in 2009.

The only dampener for the Black Caps in a largely flawless tour opener was the failure of former Test captain Ross Taylor who was adjudged lbw to Agar for a two-ball duck.

But he – along with batting stars Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson who were rested for today’s match - will have a chance to find his feet in the two-day red-ball game against a Cricket Australia XI that begins tomorrow morning.

As will Khawaja, Bancroft and Burns, but they will be joined in that CA outfit by another Test aspirant Shaun Marsh who – after enduring his share of ill fortune in a rollercoaster Test career to date – might feel the pink ball has helped fate swing in his favour.