To be clear, things like this do not happen often. Setting up in the fourth innings of the Christchurch Test, Australia needed 279 to win. Australian Test teams have been getting on the park for 147 years. Before Monday, they had chased bigger targets than this a grand total of 13 times. Now that total is up to 14, after an innings that could have gone wrong any number of times, did go wrong in three different bursts, and ultimately went calmly and deliberately right.
One of that previous baker’s dozen of wins came in Edgbaston last year. Late on the fifth day, in the gathering gloom, it was the captain, Pat Cummins, batting at No 8, finishing on 44 not out, hitting the winning runs with two wickets in hand to reach the target of 282. This time, late on the fourth day, it was Cummins batting at No 9, finishing on 32 not out, hitting the winning boundary to take the score to 281. History rhymed almost to the syllable.
It should never have happened. On the third evening, New Zealand’s opening quicks, Matt Henry and Ben Sears, had become an irresistible wave: a viciously seaming lbw and a burned review, a dropped catch, a leading edge snared by the bowler two balls later, a slip catch after angling in, a scatter of stumps off the face of an attempted leave. Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja, Cameron Green, all gone with 34 runs on the board. None of those previous big chases had succeeded from four wickets down for so few.
Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh steadied with a quick 43 by stumps, but Head was gone in the second over the next day, cutting to point one ball after Marsh had been dropped doing the same. Five down, 199 to get. No batting team is supposed to win the game from there. Much less one relying on a counterattacking all-rounder whose recent nine-month renaissance only this day dragged his career batting average above 30, and a wicketkeeper-batter whose primary job has consistently been met but whose second task has recently left him looking in serious discomfort.
Yet that’s what happened, with Marsh finding the boundary by evading the slip cordon more often than any other method but collecting his runs sensibly in between, while Carey drove an early boundary through cover, looked immediately more at ease than he has in months, and proceeded to be the pacesetter in the partnership as it built toward three figures and the runs required dropped to doubles.
With 86 to get, the game looked gone when the batting pair thrashed Henry for 16 from an over. New Zealand’s best bowler appeared exhausted from his efforts to date: nine wickets in the match that had briefly been 10, before an lbw decision against Carey was overturned by a review. Sears did reverse that trend, though, bowling a full ball that lived up to his name to burn past Marsh’s bat to find pad in front, then a shorter one that Mitchell Starc spliced to square leg.
Two in two, 59 runs to defend, and Cummins edged the next ball just in front of slip and through the cordon for four. A hat-trick on debut to set up a rare win over Australia? It would have set up Sears for life. Like struggling to shake off a troubled night’s sleep, the dream was only an arm’s length away.
Soon enough, though, was the full awakening, with Cummins calm and composed from that ball on in finishing the match, and Carey batting through to 98 not out. As much as it was a cause for Australian celebration, this was a disaster for New Zealand. Eight Test wins over Australia since 1946, just one from the strong teams of the last 13 years, none in New Zealand itself in 31 years, and while some great chances have slipped away in that time, this one was as clear-cut as any.
Glenn Phillips had tied Marsh in knots with his off-spin during the World Cup and dismissed Carey in Australia’s first innings at Christchurch, but was not used in the final innings until both those players had passed 50. Scott Kuggeleijn was a waste of a spot, highlighted by conceding 10 extras from a notional maiden over, even leaving aside the team being ethically compromised by picking a player with his personal history. Tim Southee created two chances from bad shots to two poor deliveries.
It left everything to Sears, who had his bursts but was understandably rough on debut, and Henry, who had spent all his tickets dragging his team back into the game in the first three days. Fatigue was entirely fair for a guy with the rare distinction of being player of the series in a whitewash loss, an achievement that may only be shared by Brian Lara on his tour of Sri Lanka in 2001.
Before this Test, there was a 50-year reunion for the surviving players from New Zealand’s first Test win over Australia back in 1974. Henry deserved an invitation to a similar event in 2074. It was not to be and, aged 32 with Australia not due to visit again until at least 2028, his chances of another chance on home soil are slim.
New Zealand’s last defining moment against Australia at home was Merv Hughes bowling to Kiwi wicketkeeper Tony Blain. Not much underlines the depth of the problem better than that. Supporters are tired of it, and the upbeat chat from a couple of players after this loss does not ease that at all. Australia overcame the odds to win, and can revel in that. Honestly, New Zealand also overcame the odds to lose.
