Border happy with team’s test progress

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 64

Border happy with team’s test progress

By

DAVID LEGGAT

Allan Border believes his Australian cricket side took a healthy step towards regaining its once customary position of supremacy over New Zealand with its performance in the first test which ended in Wellington yesterday.

Speaking shortly after the match had been abandoned at 10 a.m. yesterday, Border admitted his side still had problems, in the areas of fielding, middle and lower order batting and strength and persistency from the bowlers.

“I still think we have got quite a way to go before I’ll be totally happy, but basically it was a pretty good performance; it’s getting better,” he said, to a backdrop of howling winds, driving rain and the irritating clack-clack of an electric fan in urgent need of repair. He was disappointed that his bowlers let New Zealand out of a difficult situation, at 138 for five, chasing Australia’s total of 435.

“The bowling was alright up to a point. Then it seemed to lose direction. We had New Zealand in a fair amount of trouble but we didn’t finish it off. It would have been better psychologically to make New Zealand bat again. “We dropped a couple of vital catches (Jeremy Coney and Richard Hadlee on Sunday afternoon) and in this sort of cricket, if you give blokes one or two chances they tend to make you pay. Really good sides take those catches,” said Border.

The champion batsman, who became Hadlee’s three hundredth test vic-

tim on the first day at the Basin Reserve, praised the efforts of New Zealand’s debutant, Stuart Gillespie, with the bat. Coming in as a nightwatchman on the second afternoon, Gillespie stuck, around until after lunch the next day,

having to restart his innings three times, in scoring 28. “Gillespie did a very good job. Our tailenders should watch and learn from that,” said Border, in reference to Australia’s dismal run of late order collapses this summer. He felt the incident on the third afternoon when Geoff Marsh, the West Australian opener, had a plastic toilet seat whistle past his head as he chased a ball to the boundary had been

“blown out of proportion.” “It was really an isolated incident. Some of our crowds in Australia are nothing special either,” Border said. The New Zealand captain, Coney, in turn was puzzled as to why someone would bring a toilet seat to a cricket match. It was the first time he could remember eggs (hurled at the Australian Greg Matthews), or toilet seats being thrown at test matches in New Zealand. “It is disappointing. But I’m sure most countries go through the stage of

having unruly elements. You know, some of the boys have a few tinnies,

but why,” wondered a curious Coney, “bring a toilet seat along in the first place?”

As for the cricket, there was a veiled inference that New Zealand had badly misread the Basin Reserve pitch when it omitted the off-spinner, John Bracewell, and opted for an all medium-fast bowling attack. “We did miss the variation in our attack. It meant we were unable to place enough pressure on the batsmen.”

Coney, who was named “man of the match” for his unbeaten 101 and three for 47 with the ball, was impressed with the display of the young Otago batsman, Ken Rutherford, whose fine 65 was one of the highlights of the game.

Replying to the question of why he did not appear to give Rutherford much verbal encouragement or assistance, Coney said he was not there to “hold his hand.”

The Wellington test further confirmed in Coney’s mind that the best batting position for him is No. 6. He detects that he has a good rapport with the lower order batsmen and conceded that perhaps back-to-the-wall situations, with which he is all too familiar, bring out the best in him. However, Coney hoped that scenario

was not required to spur him to perform to his full capabilities.