October 26, 2024 • 13 mins
The Black Caps are celebrating after a trailblazing moment in New Zealand cricket history.
The Black Caps' 113-run victory in Pune has sealed the team's first test series win in India - dating back 12 previous series' to 1955.
Award-winning cricket writer Dylan Cleaver joined Piney to discuss the significance of this win.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Fine
from Newstalk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Taken Down Inside the Boundary by Tim Salvey, and that
completes one of the most remarkable achievements in New Zealand
Test batch cricket history. They have beaten India in India
in a series. This is no fluke.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They have outplayed a very good team and they've done
it in style.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
This is the first time they've ever beaten India in India.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
And for India on the other side of the ledger,
it's their first home defeat since twenty twelve. How about
Mitchell Satner, whose Test career history said he couldn't do this.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
He has incredible and historic achievement for the black Caps,
clinching a Test cricket series win in India for the
first time. The black Caps wrapping up a one hundred
and thirteen run victory in Test two in poone, India
bolt out for two hundred forty five chasing three hundred
and fifty nine. Mitchell Santner again the lead act for
the black Caps six second innings wickets thirteen for the
(01:16):
match in forty seven innings. Prior to this Test Satne
had never taken four wickets in an innings. Now he
has two fives in one of New Zealand's greatest wins,
and nearly twenty percent of his Test wickets have come
in this one match. India before this had won eighteen
consecutive home Test series, their previous series defeat against England
(01:41):
in twenty twelve. Multi award winning sports journalist, editor of
the Bounce subscription sports newsletter, co host of the BYC podcast,
Dylan Cleaver is with us, Dylan, how do we even
start trying to explain what on earth has happened here?
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Four thousand, three hundred and something days. It's been since
Avister Cook's very good England team feat India in India
bick in twenty twelve. So that's as good as indication
as you're going to get about what in a phenomenal achievement,
almost incomprehensible achievement, this black cap size just pulled off.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Let's go straight to Mitchell Santner. Why was he a
bowler who has never run through a team with a
red ball ever? Really? Why was he so effective?
Speaker 5 (02:31):
That's a really good question. I can only guess at
the answer, but I think it was just the perfect
pace for that wicket. I think the other spinners, apart
from Washington Sunda, who almost said as good a game
as Litter Centner, they tend to be darting flat spinners.
(02:51):
And on that wicket which Grippton turned, you could kind
of a gripton turned if you bowled a little bit slower.
And Santa was the only one that was really giving
it loop. Like if you told me before a Test
that New Zealand left arm spinner was going to rip
through India and when the Test for their country, I
would have gone ajs Ptel first that I might have
(03:12):
even gone rich and revenge a second, because you know,
if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't even
picked more full eye. So yeah, I think the wicket
was just tailor made for him. And if you predicted
it beforehand in you're a genius.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Yeah No, well I don't. All I know for a
fact nobody did. Nobody. If you could bet on Mitchell
Center taking thirteen wickets in a Test match, any Test match,
you just wouldn't take the bet. I actually can't believe
I'm asking this, but Ajs Pattel got ten for and
didn't get picked in the next test. Do you think
Mitchell sent will play the home Test against England.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Yeah, again, I'm not sure. Would I do it? Probably not,
although I do like the idea that you go with
the hot hand, so maybe this is you know, someone
described it a little bit earlier as Sanders gave braceful
moment and maybe that's a good analogy. AT's see, I
(04:12):
think you do go with the hot hand. I think
he's probably more likely to play because of the other
things he offers than an agents to tell the New
Zealand conditions, for example, So maybe maybe he's earned the right.
But yeah, again, it's just very hard to wrap your
head around what's happened over those previous three days as
to where we're now talking about Mitchell sand There is
(04:35):
the key figure in this amazing test. There is victory.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Did India bat poorly in this Test match?
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah? They did? They better poorly in this test? They
mean you could maybe right off the first Test, although
New Zealand played fantastically well. I don't want to put
that first Test victory in Bengalu down to a flute
or anything, because it wasn't. But India were undone by
conditions on the first morning there where they misread it
and New Zealand at every edge did everything perfectly in
(05:05):
this Test. They just looked a little bit lost at
times hyper aggressive in that second innings and it worked
for a little while and there was potential for them
maybe to rest the initiative for New Zeerum when particularly
when joy'swell and Gil were going very well. But yeah,
I'm not sure that they backed their own skills against
(05:29):
Mitchell Sandler. And again there was something really strange about
saying that sentence out.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Loud in a low scoring Test match. How crucial was
Tom Latham's eighty six and New Zealand's second innings.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because Tom Latham had
been a player that was beginning to really frustrate me,
because we know what a good player he is, and
he had become almost a master of these occasional cameos
and i mean still without a sex and still got
an amazing amount of Test andy for someone of his ability,
without one hundred. But people who know cricket will know
(06:05):
that that eighty six on that wicket in that situation
was probably worth a double ton meganst another team in
home conditions it was so good, he bettered so well. Yeah,
it was that. I guess the to user wore old cliche.
It was the definition of the captain's knock.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Have we. I mean, he's he's taken over the captaincy
and he's done something that no captain before him has
has done. He's I mean, with won four tests over there.
Now he's been in charge for two of them. But
did he has he stamped his captaincy on this team
or not?
Speaker 5 (06:44):
Yeah? I think he probably has. And again that's the
ability to make people like me look very silly because
I really questioned whether he was the right man. I
think they had to remove the captaincy from the Southeast
because I guess how his own form was making it untenable.
But I really questioned why you had hand the captaincy
from one guy who's place in the team had to
(07:05):
be in up with his personal contributions to another guy
whose personal contributions have been pretty watery and pretty weak
over the past year at least. But yeah, I mean,
perhaps he is the perfect personality to meld that team
as they go through this what let's face it has
been a relatively awkward transition so far from that golden
(07:27):
generation of players who won the World tiesst Championship and
has got New Zealand to number one in the world,
to this new I guess, this new phase of New
Zealand cricket, and we're not quite sure how that's going
to look yet, but I guess the signs are looking.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Up and that you land on such an interesting point, Dylan,
because I look at this team and most of them
are still north of thirty, right, So that transition has
still got quite a way to go, hasn't it.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yeah, it has, and we're not sure about the talent
levels below. Ratch and Revenger has been an absolute revelation.
Glenn Phillips does Glenn Phillips things and looks exciting, but yeah,
there's still I mean, Kane Williamson's obviously creaking. Tim Southy's creaking.
(08:12):
You know, Tom Layton's form had been I think it
was warranted to look really closely at that and wonder
whether he was ever going to be the same. Devin Conway,
who's north of thirty is again he's sort of found
some for now, but he doesn't look the same Parry
he was a couple of years ago. So there's still
questions to be asked. Let's black Caps team, and we
(08:34):
need to keep asking them. But let's not take anything
away from this particular moment you mentioned Devin Conway.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
There is everything fifty and not a small sample size,
just the fore warnings, but a couple of half centuries
over here. Can we stop worrying about Devin Conway now
or are you still a bit concerned that he's not
quite the player he was?
Speaker 5 (08:52):
Yeah? Yeah, that's an interesting point when it comes to Crooked.
I sometimes tend to be a little bit of a
black hat thinker and look at the problems. And Devin
has done very well on this tour and made some
really vital contributions. But there's still things that I look
at him when he's at the crease and think his
game is just a little bit messed up. He's a
(09:15):
player that's really confusing me. At the moment we're in
the space of two balls. He can go from looking
like just an absolute world class left ended opening bat
to the next delivery, the one that's sort of angling
in at them, looking a little bit like a club player.
But I can't insult his mental application, and he clearly
(09:38):
once runs very badly and he's almost willed himself to
runs on this tour and I think that goes a
long way.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
All right, let's circle back to this series win. You've
watched a lot of cricket, as have I. Dylan. Can
you put this into context for us? How significant a
series win is this for New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
I think it's the best. I really do.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
Like people off in benchmark the series against Australia in
Australia in eighty five, the Hadley series, I think if yeah,
I mean we often do that through rose tints and
while wanting to ruin in Australia.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Don't give me wrong, it's brilliant. You look at that
Australian team and it's not a peak Australian team by
any streets of the imagination. You look at this Indian
team and you've got Rowert Shama, You've got you know,
very Coli the King, You've got Jadasia, you've got Ashwin,
you've got some of the spectacular young talent in the world.
And Gil and Jay's well, that's a phenomenally good Indian
(10:42):
team that they have just taken apart to know all
the series that they're going to a dead rubber in Mumbai.
It's almost impossible to wrap your head around. So you know,
maybe I'm using shocking recency bias there, but I honestly do.
I think still when I look at it in the
(11:03):
cold light a day, I will come to the same
conclusion that this is as good as it gets.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yeah, Dylan, I agree, I have to agree. Thanks for
taking our call, mat Dylan Cleaver. You can read him.
His subscription newsletter is excellent. It's called The Bounce. Just
search the Bounce Dylling Cleaver. You'll find out more about it.
But your turn now. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
Let us celebrate this win for starters, But can you
(11:28):
put it into context? How big is this? I'm like Dylan,
I've always used that nineteen eighty five series against Australia
as the benchmark. But this is just so utterly historic
and so completely rare, so totally out of the blue.
I'm sure you've heard some of these numbers. Since the
start of twenty thirteen, India have played fifty three Test
(11:51):
matches at home. They've won forty two of them, sixteen
of the hostpine innings and only lost four of the
twenty three of the sorry four of the fifty three,
and two of those were to us in the last fortnight.
The only sides to win series in India since two thousand,
South Africa in two thousand, Australia and four England into
(12:11):
twenty twelve are now us. Some of the greatest teams
in history couldn't win in India. Steve War's Australians never
won there. Graham Smith's Protea has never won their viv
Richard's West Indies never won a series in India. We've
been touring there for seventy years, seven oh seventy years
and have won just four Test matches nineteen sixty nine,
(12:33):
nineteen eighty eight and these two. So is this actually
bigger than winning the World Test Championship? Is this the
cricketing everest winning a series in the hardest place there
is to do that? And just before we go to
the lines, Mitchell Santner Mitchell Santna thirteen for one hundred
and fifty seven, third best figures ever in Test matches
(12:56):
for New Zealand, third best Test figures ever by anybody
on Indian soil. Mitchell Santner has taken the same number
of Test wickets in the last two days, as he
took in ten test matches across three years between October
twenty sixteen and November twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I could go on for more from Weekend Sport with
Jason Fine. Listen live to News Talk set B weekends
from midday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Fine
from Newstalk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Taken Down Inside the Boundary by Tim Salvey, and that
completes one of the most remarkable achievements in New Zealand
Test batch cricket history. They have beaten India in India
in a series. This is no fluke.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They have outplayed a very good team and they've done
it in style.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
This is the first time they've ever beaten India in India.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
And for India on the other side of the ledger,
it's their first home defeat since twenty twelve. How about
Mitchell Satner, whose Test career history said he couldn't do this.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
He has incredible and historic achievement for the black Caps,
clinching a Test cricket series win in India for the
first time. The black Caps wrapping up a one hundred
and thirteen run victory in Test two in poone, India
bolt out for two hundred forty five chasing three hundred
and fifty nine. Mitchell Santner again the lead act for
the black Caps six second innings wickets thirteen for the
(01:16):
match in forty seven innings. Prior to this Test Satne
had never taken four wickets in an innings. Now he
has two fives in one of New Zealand's greatest wins,
and nearly twenty percent of his Test wickets have come
in this one match. India before this had won eighteen
consecutive home Test series, their previous series defeat against England
(01:41):
in twenty twelve. Multi award winning sports journalist, editor of
the Bounce subscription sports newsletter, co host of the BYC podcast,
Dylan Cleaver is with us, Dylan, how do we even
start trying to explain what on earth has happened here?
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Four thousand, three hundred and something days. It's been since
Avister Cook's very good England team feat India in India
bick in twenty twelve. So that's as good as indication
as you're going to get about what in a phenomenal achievement,
almost incomprehensible achievement, this black cap size just pulled off.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Let's go straight to Mitchell Santner. Why was he a
bowler who has never run through a team with a
red ball ever? Really? Why was he so effective?
Speaker 5 (02:31):
That's a really good question. I can only guess at
the answer, but I think it was just the perfect
pace for that wicket. I think the other spinners, apart
from Washington Sunda, who almost said as good a game
as Litter Centner, they tend to be darting flat spinners.
(02:51):
And on that wicket which Grippton turned, you could kind
of a gripton turned if you bowled a little bit slower.
And Santa was the only one that was really giving
it loop. Like if you told me before a Test
that New Zealand left arm spinner was going to rip
through India and when the Test for their country, I
would have gone ajs Ptel first that I might have
(03:12):
even gone rich and revenge a second, because you know,
if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't even
picked more full eye. So yeah, I think the wicket
was just tailor made for him. And if you predicted
it beforehand in you're a genius.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Yeah No, well I don't. All I know for a
fact nobody did. Nobody. If you could bet on Mitchell
Center taking thirteen wickets in a Test match, any Test match,
you just wouldn't take the bet. I actually can't believe
I'm asking this, but Ajs Pattel got ten for and
didn't get picked in the next test. Do you think
Mitchell sent will play the home Test against England.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Yeah, again, I'm not sure. Would I do it? Probably not,
although I do like the idea that you go with
the hot hand, so maybe this is you know, someone
described it a little bit earlier as Sanders gave braceful
moment and maybe that's a good analogy. AT's see, I
(04:12):
think you do go with the hot hand. I think
he's probably more likely to play because of the other
things he offers than an agents to tell the New
Zealand conditions, for example, So maybe maybe he's earned the right.
But yeah, again, it's just very hard to wrap your
head around what's happened over those previous three days as
to where we're now talking about Mitchell sand There is
(04:35):
the key figure in this amazing test. There is victory.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Did India bat poorly in this Test match?
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah? They did? They better poorly in this test? They
mean you could maybe right off the first Test, although
New Zealand played fantastically well. I don't want to put
that first Test victory in Bengalu down to a flute
or anything, because it wasn't. But India were undone by
conditions on the first morning there where they misread it
and New Zealand at every edge did everything perfectly in
(05:05):
this Test. They just looked a little bit lost at
times hyper aggressive in that second innings and it worked
for a little while and there was potential for them
maybe to rest the initiative for New Zeerum when particularly
when joy'swell and Gil were going very well. But yeah,
I'm not sure that they backed their own skills against
(05:29):
Mitchell Sandler. And again there was something really strange about
saying that sentence out.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Loud in a low scoring Test match. How crucial was
Tom Latham's eighty six and New Zealand's second innings.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because Tom Latham had
been a player that was beginning to really frustrate me,
because we know what a good player he is, and
he had become almost a master of these occasional cameos
and i mean still without a sex and still got
an amazing amount of Test andy for someone of his ability,
without one hundred. But people who know cricket will know
(06:05):
that that eighty six on that wicket in that situation
was probably worth a double ton meganst another team in
home conditions it was so good, he bettered so well. Yeah,
it was that. I guess the to user wore old cliche.
It was the definition of the captain's knock.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Have we. I mean, he's he's taken over the captaincy
and he's done something that no captain before him has
has done. He's I mean, with won four tests over there.
Now he's been in charge for two of them. But
did he has he stamped his captaincy on this team
or not?
Speaker 5 (06:44):
Yeah? I think he probably has. And again that's the
ability to make people like me look very silly because
I really questioned whether he was the right man. I
think they had to remove the captaincy from the Southeast
because I guess how his own form was making it untenable.
But I really questioned why you had hand the captaincy
from one guy who's place in the team had to
(07:05):
be in up with his personal contributions to another guy
whose personal contributions have been pretty watery and pretty weak
over the past year at least. But yeah, I mean,
perhaps he is the perfect personality to meld that team
as they go through this what let's face it has
been a relatively awkward transition so far from that golden
(07:27):
generation of players who won the World tiesst Championship and
has got New Zealand to number one in the world,
to this new I guess, this new phase of New
Zealand cricket, and we're not quite sure how that's going
to look yet, but I guess the signs are looking.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Up and that you land on such an interesting point, Dylan,
because I look at this team and most of them
are still north of thirty, right, So that transition has
still got quite a way to go, hasn't it.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yeah, it has, and we're not sure about the talent
levels below. Ratch and Revenger has been an absolute revelation.
Glenn Phillips does Glenn Phillips things and looks exciting, but yeah,
there's still I mean, Kane Williamson's obviously creaking. Tim Southy's creaking.
(08:12):
You know, Tom Layton's form had been I think it
was warranted to look really closely at that and wonder
whether he was ever going to be the same. Devin Conway,
who's north of thirty is again he's sort of found
some for now, but he doesn't look the same Parry
he was a couple of years ago. So there's still
questions to be asked. Let's black Caps team, and we
(08:34):
need to keep asking them. But let's not take anything
away from this particular moment you mentioned Devin Conway.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
There is everything fifty and not a small sample size,
just the fore warnings, but a couple of half centuries
over here. Can we stop worrying about Devin Conway now
or are you still a bit concerned that he's not
quite the player he was?
Speaker 5 (08:52):
Yeah? Yeah, that's an interesting point when it comes to Crooked.
I sometimes tend to be a little bit of a
black hat thinker and look at the problems. And Devin
has done very well on this tour and made some
really vital contributions. But there's still things that I look
at him when he's at the crease and think his
game is just a little bit messed up. He's a
(09:15):
player that's really confusing me. At the moment we're in
the space of two balls. He can go from looking
like just an absolute world class left ended opening bat
to the next delivery, the one that's sort of angling
in at them, looking a little bit like a club player.
But I can't insult his mental application, and he clearly
(09:38):
once runs very badly and he's almost willed himself to
runs on this tour and I think that goes a
long way.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
All right, let's circle back to this series win. You've
watched a lot of cricket, as have I. Dylan. Can
you put this into context for us? How significant a
series win is this for New Zealand.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
I think it's the best. I really do.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
Like people off in benchmark the series against Australia in
Australia in eighty five, the Hadley series, I think if yeah,
I mean we often do that through rose tints and
while wanting to ruin in Australia.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Don't give me wrong, it's brilliant. You look at that
Australian team and it's not a peak Australian team by
any streets of the imagination. You look at this Indian
team and you've got Rowert Shama, You've got you know,
very Coli the King, You've got Jadasia, you've got Ashwin,
you've got some of the spectacular young talent in the world.
And Gil and Jay's well, that's a phenomenally good Indian
(10:42):
team that they have just taken apart to know all
the series that they're going to a dead rubber in Mumbai.
It's almost impossible to wrap your head around. So you know,
maybe I'm using shocking recency bias there, but I honestly do.
I think still when I look at it in the
(11:03):
cold light a day, I will come to the same
conclusion that this is as good as it gets.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yeah, Dylan, I agree, I have to agree. Thanks for
taking our call, mat Dylan Cleaver. You can read him.
His subscription newsletter is excellent. It's called The Bounce. Just
search the Bounce Dylling Cleaver. You'll find out more about it.
But your turn now. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
Let us celebrate this win for starters, But can you
(11:28):
put it into context? How big is this? I'm like Dylan,
I've always used that nineteen eighty five series against Australia
as the benchmark. But this is just so utterly historic
and so completely rare, so totally out of the blue.
I'm sure you've heard some of these numbers. Since the
start of twenty thirteen, India have played fifty three Test
(11:51):
matches at home. They've won forty two of them, sixteen
of the hostpine innings and only lost four of the
twenty three of the sorry four of the fifty three,
and two of those were to us in the last fortnight.
The only sides to win series in India since two thousand,
South Africa in two thousand, Australia and four England into
(12:11):
twenty twelve are now us. Some of the greatest teams
in history couldn't win in India. Steve War's Australians never
won there. Graham Smith's Protea has never won their viv
Richard's West Indies never won a series in India. We've
been touring there for seventy years, seven oh seventy years
and have won just four Test matches nineteen sixty nine,
(12:33):
nineteen eighty eight and these two. So is this actually
bigger than winning the World Test Championship? Is this the
cricketing everest winning a series in the hardest place there
is to do that? And just before we go to
the lines, Mitchell Santner Mitchell Santna thirteen for one hundred
and fifty seven, third best figures ever in Test matches
(12:56):
for New Zealand, third best Test figures ever by anybody
on Indian soil. Mitchell Santner has taken the same number
of Test wickets in the last two days, as he
took in ten test matches across three years between October
twenty sixteen and November twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
I could go on for more from Weekend Sport with
Jason Fine. Listen live to News Talk set B weekends
from midday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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