16

That’s how many balls Glenn Phillips faced in the first innings today before being left high and dry.  And not for the first time this year either.  In fact it’s the third time in the last 6 test innings this has occurred.

In that time, he was part of the second highest partnership of the innings too.

There is a growing list of selection and tactical head scratchers about the New Zealand side over recent months, but the stubborn insistence of batting Phillips, in the side primarily as a batter, as low as possible is very high on the list.

To be fair, the use of Will O’Rourke is a night watchman yesterday exaggerated the issue , but for this innings it also highlighted just how odd it is.

The longest Phillips has batted in a test innings is three hours. That was on debut in the last test of the series in Australia that we don’t talk about. But that is not all his fault; batting at seven or lower removes the chance for him to prove he can play a long test innings which is presumably something he would want to do.

One of the reasons given for Blundell batting at six is that it increases the chances of him batting in tandem with Daryl Mitchell because they had a lot of big partnerships during the series in England in 2022.  Yes, that reason has been put forward.

But that was 30 months ago, and both those batsmen have had form slumps since then.  Batting at seven Blundell averages 72; at six he averages just over 20.

But he is there primarily as New Zealand’s best keeper, and after a blip last week he has shown that again in this test.  Phillips is there for his batting.  This side has enough current issues without batting them in their wrong positions.