World T20, first semi-final: New Zealand made a huge mistake in sticking to same line-up against England; they had no Plan B

There’s a point in time when most Commonwealth countries challenge their relationship with the United Kingdom. Should we become a Republic? What does the Queen do? Why is there a Union Jack on our flag? New Zealand have just been through some of that process. [caption id=“attachment_2704822” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  New Zealand should have played Trent Boult and Tim Southee against England at Kotla on Wednesday. Solaris Images[/caption] Their flag, which in poor light looks identical to Australia’s, was deemed by a vote of the people to be good enough for another 50 years or so. Then the dance will happen all over again. Change. Even when it makes absolute sense, is often hard to do. And herein lies the secret why New Zealand ultimately blew their ICC World Twenty20 campaign. They brought innovation, but could not change. It is a truism in cricket that a team is usually happy to mess with its bowling line-up, but rarely its batting order. Bowlers get rested. An extra spinner gets picked for Indian conditions. Play your quicks in Perth. The same sort of old wives tales do not exist when discussing batting. New Zealand bravely and brilliantly played and rotated their no-name spin and dibbly dobbler attack throughout this tournament. Ish Sodhi. Mitchell Santler. The other McCullum. Grant Elliott. Backed up by Mitchell McClenaghan and Corey Anderson. And until last night, it worked. They rolled India for less than Virat Kohli’s batting average. They defended against Australia. Pakistan and Bangladesh didn’t even get close. But they always batted first and found a way to defend whatever number was on the scoreboard. Until last night. It’s not as though their 153/8 was a poor score. It was New Zealand’s second-highest total for the tournament. It is just that it should have been so much better. The Black Caps’ top 3 did as they should. Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson and Colin Munro have been superb this tournament. At 107/3 (13.2), a target of 170 was on the cards. But unlike their bowling attack that morphs and changes with the conditions, their batting line-up does not. Ross Taylor at 5 hasn’t really worked. He only looked in proper control during the Pakistan match. But every Kiwi looked like they were feasting in that battle. Grant Elliott at No. 7 is simply a waste of possibly New Zealand’s best short form mainstay. He deserved the right to come in at No 4 or 5 and build a decent innings. The guy can hit. The guy also rarely gets out when his team needs him at the crease. Ironically, like Jason Roy, Elliott is among only a handful of South Africans to perform in a semi-final. On Wednesday night when the brakes were being applied by the English in the final 10 overs, New Zealand didn’t counter with anything of note. No change to the batting order. No player sent out to hit out. No player sent in to rotate the strike and find a way through. Instead, it was the same batting order that has delivered an average target of 149 runs. The average score posted in the Super 10’s Stage by all teams was 150. Australia’s only score below 149 in the tournament was against New Zealand. You cannot continually post middle-of-the-road scores and expect to win an ICC trophy. New Zealand needed to find a way to challenge Ben Stokes and Chris Jordan when they cramped them for runs towards the end of their innings. They couldn’t. They changed nothing. When it was England’s turn to respond, the Black Caps didn’t have a Stokes or Jordan to turn to. They had left Trent Boult and Tim Southee in the sheds. In fact, these two played the whole tournament from an airconditioned box. It looked clever in the first match against India. It looked plain stubborn come the semi-final. It has been a strong couple of ICC tournaments for New Zealand. A World Cup final and a World Twenty20 semi-final. One senses that the ODI result was a fair reflection of where they were at. However, this semi-final loss is likely an under achievement for a team that got so much right, but went into the tournament without a Plan B.