Trial by spin: Tough challenge turns tougher for New Zealand in India

They are entering the Test series with a batting unit that has had one of its worst years against spin

14-Oct-2024 • 16 hrs ago

Tom Latham got a start but couldn't convert it, New Zealand vs Australia, 2nd Test, Christchurch, March 8, 2024

This was meant to be New Zealand's great Test-match adventure in the subcontinent. They were to start with a non-World Test Championship (WTC) game against Afghanistan in Greater Noida to get acclimatised to the conditions, travel to Sri Lanka for a two-Test series and work on their spin game, and then return to India and try and achieve something no team has in 12 years - win a Test series in the country. It was a rare stretch of six Tests in the region with their WTC final chances still very much alive.

But halfway into it, the plan has unravelled, quickly.

To start with, no play was possible in Greater Noida across five days. The spinners and Kamindu Mendis blew them away in Sri Lanka for a 2-0 knockout. Tim Southee has stepped down from captaincy, and their best and most experienced batter, Kane Williamson, has a groin injury and will miss at least the first Test in India.

Now in Bengaluru for the first of the three Tests starting on Wednesday, New Zealand are with a new captain, without their best batter (temporarily), and with a batting unit that has had one of its poorest years against spin.

In 12 innings in 2024, New Zealand have lost 67 of 104 wickets to spin - their most in five years - and they still have six Tests to go this year. Their average of 22.58 against spin in 2024 is the worst for any team in the WTC.

They were found out in Sri Lanka, where they lost 37 of their 40 wickets to spinners. While still competitive in the first Test, with Latham, Williamson, Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell all scoring half-centuries across the two innings, they were left shell-shocked in the second Test. On a surface where Sri Lanka amassed 602 for 5, New Zealand were bowled out for 88 inside 40 overs. They came up with a much better show in the second dig to score 360, but the Test was pretty much done by then.

New Zealand's struggles against spin is not just limited to the subcontinent.

They started the 2023-25 cycle with a trip to Bangladesh, where 31 of the 36 New Zealand wickets fell to spinners, even as New Zealand fought back in Dhaka to level the series 1-1.

Then they went back home to play a second-string South Africa side and mowed them down in the two Tests. While Will O'Rourke was the leading wicket-taker in the series with nine wickets, second and third on that list were South Africa's left-arm spinner Neil Brand and offspinner Dane Piedt, both taking eight wickets apiece. Brand was making his debut in the series while Piedt was playing a Test after more than four years.

New Zealand then played another two Tests at home, against Australia. They went down 2-0 with Nathan Lyon turning out to be Australia's highest wicket-taker with 13 wickets in the series, which included a ten-wicket haul in the first game in Wellington.

Of New Zealand's current top order, Williamson has scored the most runs against spin in the ongoing WTC cycle for them: 410 at an average of 37.27. But 11 of his 14 dismissals have come against spin too. The same is the case with almost every other major batter. Ravindra has fallen to spin seven out of 12 times; Phillips nine out of 12; Mitchell eight out of 12; and Devon Conway eight out of ten. In the Sri Lanka series, several batters got stuck on the crease making them easy targets for Prabath Jayasuriya & Co.