Iain O'Brien's Cricket Blog

The third Test at Napier was a brilliant finishing Test.  It had everything apart from an outright victory.  The rain came in this one and, I feel, took a win out of our hands.  It was going to be a special run chase that we had made a great start on and even Mohammad Yousuf  was grateful for the rain.  It wasn’t a great wicket for Test cricket to be played on and in the last few years there have been very few outright results.  The pitch just gets better and better to bat on to the point where even on day five, right at the very end of the match, when you expect some strange things to happen, there was nothing in it for the bowlers; no variation of bounce, no real rough for the spinners to create some magic out of.  Any chase on day five should be tough, it should be a physical battle and more so a psychological battle knowing that the pitch is (should be) going to be tough to bat on.  It wasn’t, it was as good as a batting wicket gets.  You could have played another five days of cricket on that wicket without it doing anything indifferent.

So to come away from a Test in Napier and getting so close to a win, so bitterly close, and in my last Test, it was quite deflating. 

I started the match like I had done no other.  We were asked to bowl, we wanted to bat first, but I’ve never complained too much about bowling first here, it’s the only time the ball does anything and as Rossco keeps pointing out team that bat first are very often four or five down at lunch.  I was first change, following Chris Martin, and felt really good.  I was excited about this Test, my last one, and really wanted to do something special.  And I did, first up; a wicket in my first over, and a spell of eight overs where I picked up four wickets for 15 runs.  I felt amazing.  Everything felt great.  I had a light breeze at my back; it was about 25 degrees, a new rock in my hand and a quickish day one track.  It would be these conditions that I would love to bowl in every time I had to bowl and if I ever found one of those magic Genie lamps, I’d be asking for. 

Genie: where can I find a lamp?

I bowled 12 dot balls to Mohammad Yousuf and had him caught at gully on the 13^th ball I had bowled to him.  In recent times this is probably the best wicket I have earned.  It was 13 balls all in areas that I wanted to bowl to Mohammad Yousuf in.  I really enjoyed getting his wicket, a lot more than some I have in the past.  He’s an amazing player and to pick him up using the skills I have become better at over the last 18 months was very satisfying.  He was the guy I really wanted in the Pakistan batting line up and I hadn’t got him till this Test; and to double him up in the second innings was icing on this guys very big bit of cake.

http://www.cricinfo.com/nzvpak2009/content/image/438922.html?object=38108

Those four wickets were all I could manage in the first innings.  I just couldn’t pick up one more, it was frustrating and it is one thing I wish I had more of in my career; more 5 wicket bags.  I’ve finished with only one, against West Indies.

I scored 19 in the first innings with the bat; my batting has really got better over my last 5-8 Test that and add to that the track was now pretty placid, at no stage did I really feel too uncomfortable; until Aamer came around the wicket and bowled a few short ones.  I just didn’t pick them up to well but got through it and was really disappointed to be stumped and leave Tuffy on 80.  I had joined him when he was in the early 40’s.  My obvious first goal was to get him through to 50; make sure I didn’t get out on him.  I did that and then we went about scoring as many as we could.  We had some fun together.  Tower played a whole range of shots and we put on 62 for the 9^th wicket.  I’m really taking a lot of pride for the partnerships that I had been a part of recently; and it’s only come about from doing more and more work in the nets; overtraining the uncomfortable things in the nets that will make life in the middle more comfortable.  It was paying off for my average and more importantly our team scores.

http://www.cricinfo.com/nzvpak2009/content/image/439212.html?page=1;object=38108 

We ended up scoring a good first innings score, one that we certainly would have taken when we were 145-5.  Partnerships of 176 (Dan and Baz), 87 (Dan and Tower) and 62 (Tower and I) from that precarious position turned it around and that was based around a hundred to Dan; now his batting has improved out of sight and it should be a lesson to every tail ender in the world; hard work doing the horrible things in the nets pays off.  It’s the leaf from his book I’ve been trying to take.

To be continued.................