Williamson’s get-out-of-jail shot is the dab, against both spin and pace, but with a slip in place and the ball turning and holding up in the Providence pitch, there was no way out for him and New Zealand.
“He must have known there was a slip there,” Ian Smith summed up the dismissal on TV commentary. “It’s another indication of a side that hasn’t played cricket.”
The cobwebs had gathered so much dust that it was impossible for New Zealand to brush them off in three hours. Allen, who was patrolling the longer leg-side boundary, lost the ball under lights and dropped Ibrahim Zadran on 13 in the fifth over. In the next over, Conway failed to gather an accurate throw and fluffed a run-out chance. Gurbaz was on 19 at that point. The opening pair punished New Zealand’s sloppiness in the field and pressed on to forge 103 in 14.3 overs. There were a number of other fielding lapses in an un-New Zealand performance that had the Black Caps red-faced, including Williamson.
“Our fielding didn’t help our cause without a doubt,” Williamson said after the game. “That would be the most frustrating part for me. “It is something we pride ourselves on, so that was very disappointing but that performance from us married up to an outstanding performance from Afghanistan meant that it wasn’t good enough and they showed their skill today and we were outplayed.”
To turn down those two warm-up games, to me, is mind-blowing and should be put under scrutiny
Mitchell McClenaghan
“To turn down a couple of warm-up games…you’ve got a lot of players that haven’t played and sat on the bench in the IPL,” McClenaghan said on the Timeout show. “Conway looked incredibly out of touch. Finn Allen, in his case, didn’t go to Pakistan with a back injury. All these guys haven’t played in the last month or so and then also haven’t played in the Caribbean. So, to turn down those two warm-up games, to me, is mind-blowing and should be put under scrutiny.”
“We looked really underdone,” Hesson told Sky Sport NZ. “We actually looked disinterested at times when things actually started to not go our way. The body language dropped in the field, which is certainly not what Kane Williamson will be pleased with at all. From there, they gave Afghanistan a bit of momentum and there were some chances that New Zealand missed. Devon Conway certainly looked like he hadn’t played cricket in three months, which he obviously hadn’t, and I felt for him. The fact that there’s been no warm-up games for this Black Caps side…unfortunately, there was no surprise with the performance they put in.”
“Well, they [West Indies] are an amazing T20 team. They’re a strong team that can change the game very quickly and it’s obviously their home conditions as well,” Luke Ronchi, New Zealand’s batting coach, said upon the squad’s arrival in Trinidad on Saturday. “They have a lot of guys from Trinidad playing in their team, so they know the conditions and the ground at the Brian Lara Stadium. It’s [about] making sure we do what we do. That’s something we missed in the first game.”
Even if New Zealand hit the ground running against West Indies, they could well suffer an early exit, considering their poor net run-rate (minus 4.2), unless the co-hosts lose to Afghanistan.
One rust-ridden, un-New Zealand performance may have unravelled an entire World Cup campaign.
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
