New Zealand must master low bounce

Chris Cairns

• Last Updated: November 04. 2009 8:36PM UAE / November 4. 2009 4:36PM GMT

The demise of New Zealand on Tuesday was brought about by individual brilliance. Ironically the talk surrounding this series was about coaching, but the assault by Shahid Afridi and Kamran Akmal was pure in its delivery and something that is un-coachable.

At 30 overs in the Pakistan innings, New Zealand were ahead in the game. A total of 220 looked like the best the men in green could muster and New Zealand would have fancied their chances. To say they bowled badly to Afridi detracts significantly from his performance. I thought they bowled well to him. He just took the game away.

Risky and Afridi go together like umpire Billy Bowden and silly signals. Asking him to curb his ways deprives the viewers. I say long may he continue to deliver his own style.

Later in the innings the bowling to Akmal lacked accuracy and in part this was caused by the anxiety that Afridi had implanted. Expect to see a better bowling performance to the dangerous Pakistan wicketkeeper who loves batting on this Abu Dhabi strip.

Give Akmal room outside off at your peril. The New Zealand bowlers need to keep the ball at his pads and deny his love affair with lofted sixes over cover. Of course, such a flippant comment does not really do justice to how tough a shot that really is.

A total of 220 was the maximum I thought New Zealand could chase on this pitch. When 280 was posted it was going to be as tough as driving below the speed limit on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway.

There is a reason New Zealand have lost 10 from 10 in their quest for victory in the UAE: low pitches.

Pakistan are masterful on these surfaces. If we look at the New Zealand victory at the Champions Trophy a month ago, it was at the Wanderers – on a bouncy pitch – and the Pakistan batting and bowling has always been susceptible in this environment.

Pakistan fast bowlers have an ability to skid the ball through, to hurry on to you and rush your shot as a batter. They are quick through the air and again this skill helps enormously with reverse swing.

The New Zealand bowlers tend to be more into the pitch bowlers and the ball tends to sit up a lot more on slow wickets instead of skidding through. Then there are the spinners: the accuracy and pace the subcontinent spinners possess make them tough to break down as well.

So an insurmountable challenge for New Zealand? History tells us it looks this way and it is hard to argue against it. However, I am a New Zealander through and through and I feel that in one of these next two matches our bowling unit will fire and either restrict Pakistan or contain them.

The other factor, however, is runs, and this has been the Achilles heel of New Zealand teams past and present.

Without dissecting each player, because they do that in their debriefs, it comes down to having the mental fortitude to take the challenge on, to understand what you are up against and adopt a philosophy. For Aaron Redmond, to bat through the innings; for Martin Guptill, to play intelligently; for Ross Taylor, to take the spinners on; and for Brendan McCullum, to be free of what he thinks he should be and play to his natural flair.

The big player for me is Jacob Oram, however, because I know how destructive he can be. He along with McCullum can be weighed down too often by the potential of their dismissal instead of backing their instinct to enact it.

A fine line indeed, but when on top of your game it is a line you walk without trepidation.



sports@thenational.ae



Chris Cairns played 62 Tests and 215 ODIs for New Zealand between 1989 and 2006