New Zealand entered this T20 World Cup one bowler light and the gaps keep opening. Adam Milne pulled up lame before a ball was bowled, Michael Bracewell’s calf still will not co-operate, Lockie Ferguson has headed home for the arrival of his first child and Matt Henry is packing the same bags later this week. Both quicks will be back for the Super Eights, but someone has to cover the overs – and, for now, that someone is Glenn Phillips and Rachin Ravindra.
It is hardly ideal, yet Mitchell Santner has already started road-testing the Plan B. Against Afghanistan he trusted Ravindra with the 18th over, a period normally reserved for the specialists. The left-armer removed Gulbadin Naib for 63 but still leaked 14 runs. Two nights later, the same ploy, different bowler: Phillips was tossed the ball versus UAE and watched Muhammad Waseem and Milind Kumar pillage 27. New Zealand still won both matches, so the experiment survives.
Canada on Tuesday feels like another low-risk window to push the pair again. If the Black Caps advance, all three Super Eights fixtures are pencilled in for Colombo where slower, turning pitches tend to demand an extra spinner. Phillips is not pretending the situation is perfect but insists the squad can plug the hole.
“Obviously, Beast [Bracewell] is a big loss for us with his power and obviously his bowling as well,” Phillips said. “But we do have the stocks with both Ish [Sodhi], Rach, and obviously myself to be able to make up overs, especially in this part of the world.
“We both love our bowling. And we love being given the opportunity to contribute in both facets of the game. But having Neesh [James Neesham] there as well provides the opportunity to be able to make up that fifth bowler with both seam and spin which is quite handy.”
Those overs are likely to be even more valuable in Sri Lanka. Colombo pitches can be two-paced, the ball peeling off the surface rather than skidding through. Phillips is braced for totals to shrink.
“The conditions in Sri Lanka are going to be very different to the ones that we’ve got here,” he said. “It poses a completely different challenge… Maybe scores of 160-150 might be different in Sri Lanka with a bit more turn, but you never know. We may get an absolute belter and then 200 is still on.”
Ravindra, who has bowled in all three group games, would welcome that. The current team balance leans heavily on its headline acts: Phillips for late-order bursts, Trent Boult and Tim Southee for new-ball strikes, Santner for economy. When those cogs misfire – as they did during parts of the India series and again against South Africa – the machine can look creaky.
“There’s not necessarily been a pattern per se [to NZ’s defeats],” Phillips said. “If our top order’s gone down, then our middle order stepped up. And, sometimes it just happens to be the way that the top order gets off to a start and then the middle can’t go through. So that’s just the nature of T20 cricket when you’re trying to keep the…”
He tailed off, half-laughing at the impossibility of predicting a format that condenses chaos into 240 deliveries. For now, New Zealand’s solution is simple: give their part-timers more time in the middle and trust the cavalry returns before the tournament’s serious end.
