black caps. or the gift that just keeps on giving.

Admittedly, after the Black Caps' recent performances in the Caribbean, I felt so very tempted to compose an entry full of links to my blog posts from March (see sidebar), maybe replace a few names or two here and there with their West Indian counterparts, and end the link festival with a string of curses and a couple of "I told you so" - but that would be tedious, right?

But then again, don't tedious performances deserve tedious blogs as reward punishment? Yes, Martin Guptill finally scored some runs at the top of the order (before throwing his wickets away), Brendon McCullum finally managed to not bat like a complete dick (though only in the second innings), and you can't fault Neil Wagner's and Kruger van Wyk's efforts (though in vain); but beyond that, this entire Test match was a celebration of poor attitude, poor fielding, poor bowling and poor batting, clearly not helped by wrong tactics and wrong selection. How was a batting line-up this shaky paired up with two more or less hit-and-miss bowlers, good ol' Chris Martin and a struggling Vettori going to deal with Hurricane Gayle?

We know Mr Hobart will always feature in the playing XI, whether he deserves it or not, simply because he's Mr Hobart, and Chris Martin has been New Zealand's only reliable wicket-taker for quite some time now, so he naturally can't be left out. Given the well-known and well-publicized condition of the wicket, should Neil Wagner have made his debut on a pitch this uncooperative? Maybe not. But given the build-up and the four years and the ICC enquiry, those in charge probably felt like he had to play, regardless of whether this was going to end well or not. If Trent Boult had been fit, he definitely wouldn't have played for the reasons above, even though he and the perfectly healthy, on-the-up-again Tim Southee were the only bowlers who looked like troubling Chris Gayle in the one-day series.

Had BJ Watling been fit, he may have come into the team, but at the expense of Kruger van Wyk instead of Dean Brownlie or Daniel Flynn. Only in New Zealand would an opening batsman be forced to be the keeper-batsman down at #6 while the middle-order batsman is forced to open. Dean Brownlie has been hopelessly out of form for a rather long while now, and he honestly doesn't add too much at the moment, neither with bat nor ball nor in the field. That alone - apart from the state of the wicket - would've been reason enough to select Tarun Nethula instead of Brownlie, because he could've given Daniel Vettori a much needed hand and would've probably scored as many runs as Brownlie too, if not more. Personally, I'm not one to get overly excited over someone just because he can bowl a bit of legspin, so I would've gone with Tim Southee, meaning four seamers and Vettori, to at least give New Zealand the semblance of a chance to bowl the opposition out.

New Zealand clearly can't afford to leave out Daniel Vettori, the batsman. But what are they going to do about Daniel Vettori, the bowler? New spinning blood is scarce, I know, but can they afford to play a spin bowler that makes Gayle's grandpa spin look effective? Especially when Daniel Vettori, the batsman, hasn't even been scoring that many runs either?

The responsibility of bowling some half-decent spin shouldn't also be laid on Kane Williamson, even less so when it's only a matter of time before his action will be looked at by the ICC. He's certainly got talent as a spinner, and the Black Caps could do a lot worse in the part-time department than him, but you do have to ask yourself why nobody has worked on fixing his action before, which is - while adorable to watch and quite effective - absolutely ridiculous.

Which leads me to my next problem. Kane Williamson and his personal nightwatchman, Neil Wagner. We know I believe he can do no wrong, but him using a nightwatchman twice really disappointed me. Not only do I expect more from him, especially after he dealt with Steyn & Co. so well, and simply hold him to a much higher standard than most other batsmen (in NZ anyway, but also in world cricket), but it also visibly unsettled both Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor. It shouldn't have been Neil Wagner's job to try and shepherd Guptill through to a century, and it certainly shouldn't have been his job to warm the crease for the captain-to-be. You could see Kemar Roach licking his lips when Williamson finally came out to bat; he might as well hold up a sign the next time "I'm crapping myself, guys!", it'd be equally as effective. If I were him, I would've been ashamed to see Wagner not only survive to the next day, but actually bat through to lunch, whereas I, as the future of New Zealand cricket, not only chickened out twice like a little wuss, but also managed to contribute pretty much nothing to the score.

On top of that, we have a captain who to me was the wrong choice from the start, whom the majority of the team didn't want, whom I would consider to be an irresponsible and overrated batsman, especially in Test cricket, and who also appears to be trying to win a "Dumbest Comment" competition - and ending up occupying places 1 to 10 himself. New Zealand got thrashed in the T20 and ODI series (bar that one win, coincidentally during Kane Williamson's short tenure as stand-in captain), played badly in the warm-up game leading up to the Test series, yet he said he didn't care about warm-ups anyway and was happy with the team's performances. Then he also informed us that Sunil Narine poses no threat in Tests, because "you don't have to play him". Sunil Narine ended up taking just the eight wickets, including a five-fer in the first innings, on a pitch where Daniel Vettori genuinely couldn't buy a wicket.

New Zealand went from 223-2 to 233-4 (or rather 233-5 because of Wagner - or rather 233-6 because of Wagner and Martin), yet the captain of all captains thought they were still on top. Scyld Berry anybody? They were bowled out twice in more or less bloodcurdling circumstances on a pitch that was "difficult to bat on" - West Indies scored just the 522 runs in their first innings, won by nine wickets and Shivnarine Chanderpaul didn't even score. To be honest, they seem to love talking to the media a bit too much. Martin Guptill was particularly outstanding after stumps on Day 4, New Zealand were basically 28-3 (or rather 28-5 because of Wagner and Martin), and he was totally confident they'd manage to salvage a draw, because they had still plenty of batting to come with Taylor and Williamson. Safe to say, that worked out brilliantly. (Honourable mention to Jacob Oram though for saying the West Indies had to watch out. Oh.)

And if all that wasn't enough, their body language and overall attitude left a lot to be desired. A blatantly obvious case of ball tampering by Mr Hobart Doug Bracewell, plus unimaginative, one-dimensional bowling (which lead to me tweeting "black caps, are you england in disguise?" at one point, I'm not even sorry), a performance in the field you'd call 'sloppy' if you were being nice, but which can only be described as disinterested and at times even insulting, dropped dollies, and their usual approach to batting, lacking application and a sense of responsibility, lead by someone whose face indicates that he couldn't care less - no wonder West Indies didn't even have to work that hard to beat this New Zealand side.

Luckily for me (and unlike the majority of NZ media and a lot of supporters), I've gotten over Hobart way back in December already, and I didn't really expect anything from the Black Caps on this tour, so the outcome so far hasn't particularly surprised me. The manner in which they lost the vast majority of their matches though, the fact that it appears that neither team nor coaches are doing much to prevent these frankly embarrassing results, and that it seems like there's no end to this ordeal in sight, well, that's something else entirely.

Somebody just make it stop, please.

Since writing the above, Vettori and Flynn have been ruled out of the second Test. This is going to be fun.