If you believe in omens, this wasn’t a good one. Alex Carey had just finished his net on Monday morning and was walking away from the practice area at the Hagley Oval. As he did, a football was flicked in his direction by one of his teammates. Instinctively, the former GWS Giant reacted by sticking his bat out and getting an “outside edge” that was duly snapped up by Usman Khawaja. Laughter all around. Just a wry smile from Carey.
Having managed to toe-end the ball while attempting a sweep shot from Glenn Phillips’s bowling in the first innings, the last thing Carey needed was being unable to middle a Sherrin before potentially walking out to bat for a second time.
He didn’t have to wait too long either. It was a rainy beginning to the day in Christchurch, with the start of play delayed by nearly an hour. But the covers had come off, and play started exactly at noon.
And it took less than 12 minutes for Carey to be walking out to bat. His state mate, Travis Head, had just fallen to a pretty forgettable shot in the circumstances. After seeing Mitchell Marsh dropped at backward point from the previous delivery, Head had a dash at a widish ball from Tim Southee and smashed it straight to Will Young at short point, strategically placed for that very shot.
The score read 5-80 with Australia still 199 runs away from an improbable victory.
The crowd at Hagley Oval had found their voice. The members had edged closer to the boundary below the commentary boxes. The New Zealand fielders were abuzz, sensing a win that had eluded them for 30 years.
Captain Southee had found a spring in his step again. How quickly the mood changed. The ball before, their heads had dropped collectively, when Rachin Ravindra put down the straightforward opportunity. Now chests were puffed out.
The third delivery Carey faced from Southee whizzed past his outside edge, nipping off the wicket after angling in.
It was just the kind of delivery the veteran seamer would have wanted to bowl at the Australian wicketkeeper early in his innings. It was just the kind of delivery Carey needed to survive early in his innings to prosper.
It had been a series, if not an entire summer, where it felt like every time he made a mistake with the bat, he paid for it with his wicket. Turns out Carey doesn’t believe in omens anyway.
There’s been a lot of talk linking the Jonny Bairstow stumping at Lord’s – otherwise known as the biggest non-event of the year – to the drop in numbers with Carey’s batting. He has seemingly struggled from July at Lord’s through to Hagley Oval on Monday. Throughout that period, Carey has repeatedly denied any connection between the two, or even that the incessant jeering he received from the English crowds had in any way dampened his spirit.
Now in front of the most partisan – yet less insolent – crowd he’s played a Test knock in front of since the Ashes, Carey had the chance to put to bed any connection – real or imagined – with Bairstow. To show he was still the composed, calm and temperamentally sound cricketer who had won over his state and national selectors with those very virtues.
It did help that in Marsh he had arguably the most nonplussed teammate at the other end. It was the burly Western Australian’s aggression the previous evening that had helped Australia break away from the stranglehold the Kiwis had put on them with the four early wickets. And Marsh had welcomed Carey to the crease with a rather heavy pat on the back, followed by a joke.
If that didn’t ease the South Australian at the crease, then the straight drive he got to play from a full-pitched delivery from the seventh ball he faced certainly seemed to do the job. Then came a clip off his legs, and another one, before he was punching length deliveries through the covers and backward point region like he has throughout his career.
All of a sudden, it was Carey who was taking the pressure off Marsh. He was the aggressor, Marsh the accumulator. After having seemingly had things in control for the first 45 minutes of the day’s play, it was the Black Caps who were the first to show signs of wilting under pressure.
The disappointingly executed short-ball strategy from Scott Kuggeleijn was the first glimpse. Thirty runs came in the space of four overs and, as the truncated first session came to a close, the pair had brought the required runs down to 105, scoring at will.
Marsh didn’t have a hit on Monday morning. Not like he’s ever believed in omens of any kind either, and especially not in the past eight months, during which his international career has been transformed. He continued on his merry way after the break before becoming the first of back-to-back victims for young tearaway Ben Sears. For the second time in the day, the crowd found its voice. But only very briefly.
Pat Cummins walking out to bat with his team in need of a reassuring presence in the middle in a nervy run chase is becoming a regular sight.
Just like he had on that rainy morning in Birmingham in June, he’d nipped off for a quick net under gloomy skies once everyone else was done.
The result was the same, with the Australian captain hitting the winning runs, like he had at Edgbaston, even if there are some who’d have preferred him to let Carey, who finished 98 not out, do the honours.
Like all things New Zealand, the celebrations from the Australians were pretty low-key.
Just a tight hug between Cummins and Carey in the middle, and the rest of the Australians had to wait till they’d shaken all the New Zealand players’ hands before finally getting to engulf Carey with embraces.
Before this columnist could get to Carey for an interview, Marsh stopped me in my tracks going, “how good? … how good? …” followed by a hug.
He was buzzing. He was excited. He was chuffed. Not so much for himself. But for Carey. And for his team. He then decided to entertain Carey’s young son, Louis, while his father took care of his media commitments. Louis of course was carrying the player of the match trophy and running around.
After initially lamenting about how heavy it was, he managed to pick it up and even walked over to one section of the Australian fans before parading it to loud cheers.
“Yes, that’s your daddy’s now. You can take it home with you,” Marsh told him, on a day the senior Carey had carried his team home with one of the best Test innings ever by an Australian wicketkeeper.
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