Astle hopeful of end to drought (4 June 1999)

4 June 1999

Astle hopeful of end to drought

The Christchurch Press

Out of touch New Zealand batsman Nathan Astle hopes a rich vein of runs awaits next week to boost the Black Caps World Cup cricket campaign.

The Canterbury one-day opener, upon whom New Zealand's hopes rest for a flying start to its 50-over innings, has been misfiring on seaming pitches in England, dismissed for scores of 4, 5, 2, 0 and 11 in pool play.

"Sure it bugs you a bit, but I still feel in a good frame of mind," Astle said.

"I've just been good enough to get the nick I suppose, when at other times I might have played and missed."

"Every batsman goes through this and hopefully runs are just around the corner. I'm not the only player this is happening to at the tournament."

Astle said watching video analysis of his brief innings with technical adviser Ashley Ross had not revealed any serious deficiencies which needed correcting.

Astle, New Zealand's player of the year last summer, had scored the most one-day hundreds, six, of any Black Caps batsman and invariably when he prospers, so does the team.

Astle had a form slump two seasons ago against Australia, but later that summer the runs returned and one team which suffered was Zimbabwe, New Zealand's opponent on Sunday. Astle said Zimbabwe was playing well and he thought their side would be on a high after beating South Africa.

"But we hope they might be just expecting things to happen, like Pakistan against Bangladesh, and they don't."

Astle said New Zealand was targeting two wins out of three in the Super Six series to ensure it made the semi-finals.

Astle said while the seaming Duke balls had a lot to do with the difficulties of most teams' top orders, he did not believe using it in New Zealand earlier this year would have helped.

"We had some balls sent over to New Zealand, but they were different again, harder and with a bigger seam so there wouldn't have been much point. We had a few weeks here to get used to them, there's no excuses."

The only upside for Astle with his batting woes is he has at least been able to enjoy bowling his medium-pacers in helpful conditions and inflict some misery on opposition batsmen.

New Zealand will revert to its established batting order for the rest of the World Cup, despite temptations to swap players around to fill trouble spots at the top of the order.

"The options are running pretty dry because we haven't got guys hitting here in great nick who are ready to take over a spot," coach Steve Rixon said yesterday.

The decision to stick to the accepted batting line-up should meet with the approval of former New Zealand coach Glenn Turner, who yesterday said the team had no choice but to stick with Astle and Matt Horne to open the innings.

"At the risk of fiddling around with orders again, we'll probably keep things as they have been."

Twose could have been elevated but he is stable in the middle order, scoring runs when it counts.

Rixon said he would like to see Craig McMillan climb into a few bowling attacks as well. McMillan has got starts in every game, but has a top score of just 32 in the tournament to date.

"He is still moving while playing the shot, being in two minds whether he should be belting over the top or playing defensively, but not doing either well," Rixon said.

Source :: The Christchurch Press (https://www.press.co.nz/)