New Zealand’s tour of woe takes turn for worst

The first signs that New Zealand's already lamentable Test tour to Australia was turning wretched came in the visitors' changerooms at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday morning.

Hopes that the recent dawn of a new year might bring good fortune that had eluded the Black Caps since before they left home for the three-match Domain Test Series proved cruelly illusory.

While instances of folks reporting for work on the morning of January 1 feeling sadly out of sorts are not normally newsworthy, the muscle pains and headaches that the touring Test team's captain Kane Williamson and teammate Henry Nicholls reported as the team assembled around 9am were decidedly irregular.

The pair had felt unwell at breakfast and then during the short ride from the Black Caps CBD hotel to the cricket ground, but were preparing to take part in the two-hour training session before their symptoms began to worsen.

They alerted team physiotherapist Vijay Vallabh, who previously oversaw the wellbeing of referees for New Zealand Rugby, and a decision was made to send them back to the hotel in the expectation they would be fit by the following day.

"They were a bit fatigued and achy, so we sent them home and they saw the doctor who confirmed a bit of a viral illness," Vallabh told Fox Cricket during the first day of the third Domain Test in which New Zealand were forced to field a drastically re-cast team.

"We did everything we could with fluids and sleep to try and get them back, but unfortunately they couldn't (recover)."

By the time it became clear there was a genuine risk the Black Caps best batter and inspirational leader, as well as his senior middle-order teammate, might not recover in time for the Test, another patient was admitted to the quarantine ward.

Mitchell Santner, the left-arm spinner who had already been battling chronic under-performance and an expectation he might be excised from the starting XI regardless of the physical state of himself and others, reported similar flu-like symptoms on Thursday.

With the trio conspicuously absent from the Black Caps' Test eve practice session, opener Tom Latham – who had deputised for Williamson at the Prime Ministerial reception held to honour both teams at Kirribilli House on New Year's Day – fronted a media conference to provide an update of where the tourists' playing stocks were at.

But the state of flux engulfing the visitors was palpable when Latham, who a day later would be ordained as the 30th man to lead his country in Test cricket (albeit as an interim measure), three times began answers with the disclaimer "it's up in the air at the moment".

On a further three occasions during that seven-minute media engagement, he prefaced his responses with "I'm not 100 per cent sure …"

There was even less certainty emanating from the Kiwi camp when the newly augmented squad arrived at the SCG on match morning.

Among their number was uncapped 23-year-old Glenn Phillips who two days earlier had been captaining Auckland in their T20 Super Smash against Canterbury at Eden Park's number two oval but was summoned on Thursday evening as a possible replacement for the infirmed.

Phillips had been placed on the final flight out of Auckland on Thursday evening and arrived at Sydney airport at 9.30pm yesterday, barely 24 hours before he became a Test cricketer.

During a chaotic 60 minutes or so before the rival captains met in the middle to swap their respective team sheets and toss the coin, Williamson and Nicholls made one final effort to prove to medical staff – and to themselves – they were sufficiently well to tackle a five-day Test match.

Santner had already been ruled out and had not made the trip to the ground, while Williamson and Nicholls had barely strapped on the pads and headed towards the practice nets before the Black Caps' hierarchy knew they had something of a crisis on their hands.

"When I saw them this morning I felt it was highly unlikely," Vallabh said today when asked how close the captain and the number-five batter had been to making muster.

"But I thought it was safe to give them an opportunity to try, and then make a collective decision … around player welfare and safety."

That consultation process retuned the diagnosis that the pair would join Santner back at the hotel, but it was not only the Kiwis' sick bay that was shown to exclusively feature a revolving door.

Image Id: BB661C5EF4244E7799C8B5A3E516E660 Image Caption: Southee was left out for the SCG Test // Getty

In addition to the changes forced because of ill health, the Black Caps were compelled to find a replacement for pace bowler Trent Boult (who had his hand fractured by a blow he copped while batting in Melbourne last week) while his long-time new-ball partner Tim Southee was also omitted.

The decision to leave out Southee, who might have otherwise been in the reckoning to fill-in as skipper when Williamson was laid low, raised eyebrows among some including ex-NZ captain Brendon McCullum given the loss of experienced personnel already beyond selectors' control.

But it was explained as being made on the grounds of Southee's sizeable workload over the preceding two Tests (in which he sent down almost 100 overs) and with an eye on the five-week campaign of Tests and limited-overs fixtures against India that NZ enter into later this month.

And given the way their unhappy sojourn in Australia has panned out, it's scarcely surprising they are already looking beyond it to the next assignment.

Image Id: 97C18E6326FF4600A6D2B08066F6A57E Image Caption: Glenn Phillips was handed a surprise Test debut on Friday // Getty

The warning signs of an impending disaster were writ clearly, if not large, before Williamson and his men had left home soil.

The eight-day turnaround between the end of their final home Test against England at Hamilton and the first Domain Test against Australia at Perth precluded the scheduling of a practice match, and was further compromised when the Black Caps' Australia-bound flight was delayed.

Once in the west, the visitors conducted their pre-match training on the slightly spicy Perth Stadium practice wickets (where veteran batter Ross Taylor was struck a stinging blow on the hand) while Australia's seamless preparation was conducted on the pristine surface of the little-used nearby WACA Ground.

On the first day of the Test, NZ's debutant fast bowler Lockie Ferguson – who had been included in the starting XI because Boult had failed to recover from a rib injury – strained a calf muscle and, in addition to being unable to bowl for the remainder of the Test, was ruled out of the series.

Image Id: 6553EC3D2DF844D1933BA067CCB90479 Image Caption: Trent Boult suffered a series-ending injury at the MCG // Getty

Smarting from their 296-run defeat inside four days, the Black Caps then flew to Melbourne where the first day of their planned practice match against a Victoria XI was cancelled due to extreme weather, while the one-day fixture it subsequently became was played in draining heat.

Conditions in Melbourne became oppressive later in the second Test match, of which NZ spent most of the first two days in the field after Williamson won the toss and opted to bowl.

And on its penultimate day, Boult was struck on the hand by a Mitchell Starc bouncer and was unable to bat in his team's second innings which ended late on day four as they slumped to a 247-run belting.

Those results represented the two heaviest losses a New Zealand men's Test team has suffered in Australia (in terms of runs) since they first toured in the summer of 1973-74.

And yet they also acted as a mere prelude to the most wretched run of bad luck, which arrived within hours of a brand new year.

Domain Test Series v New Zealand

Australia squad: David Warner, Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Matthew Wade, Travis Head, Tim Paine (c, wk), Pat Cummins, Mitch Starc, Nathan Lyon, James Pattinson, Michael Neser, Mitchell Swepson

New Zealand: Todd Astle, Tom Blundell, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Glenn Phillips, Jeet Raval, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, BJ Watling, Neil Wagner, Kane Williamson (c)

First Test: Australia won by 296 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 247 runs

Third Test: January 3-7, SCG (Seven, Fox & Kayo)