New Zealand's second-innings problems

By common consensus, the Lord's Test was one of the finest we have seen in a while. There were plenty of runs scored - the highest, in fact, in a Test at the ground - all 40 wickets fell, the pitch had something in it for everybody, England produced a magnificent fightback based on attacking cricket, and finally, the home team won, and a decisive result was produced minutes before close of play. It was such a fine Test match that Brendon McCullum, the losing captain, felt obliged to comment about it despite finishing up on the wrong end of the result.

Undoubtedly, the contest thrilled the senses, but for New Zealand there was a familiar, and not-so-encouraging, pattern to the game: they were well on top through the first half of the match, but were then powerless as their opponents piled on the runs in the second innings. Because they did so at a quick rate as well - courtesy Ben Stokes - there was enough time for New Zealand to collapse in the fourth, to a defeat that will surely hurt.

There are a few other such examples of teams overcoming huge deficits and fighting back against New Zealand, though those games ended in draws. In December 2013 in Dunedin, West Indies trailed by 396 after the first innings, but then batted 162.1 overs in their second innings to score 507, with Darren Bravo getting 218. They batted long enough to deny New Zealand victory. The previous year, at the same venue, South Africa recovered from a much smaller deficit to score 435 for 5 and shut out chances of a New Zealand win, just as Pakistan did in Napier in 2009, while India recovered from a 300-plus first-innings deficit too at the same ground earlier that year.

The pattern mentioned above is summed up in the table below: while New Zealand's batting and bowling have kept opponents in check in the first innings, in the second they've slipped up regularly: in Tests since the beginning of 2009, their batting average in the second innings falls to 28.80, while the bowling average goes up to nearly 40, which means the difference the two is almost 11 runs; in the first innings, the difference is barely a run. That seems to suggest that New Zealand tend to start Test matches a lot better than they end them.

The table below looks at the difference between the first and second-innings bowling averages for all teams in Tests since the beginning of 2009. In general, teams tend to have better bowling averages in the second innings, since the pitches generally tend to deteriorate as the matches go along, making batting more difficult, and taking wickets easier. With New Zealand, though, the reverse tends to happen: they are the only team whose second-innings bowling average is more than their first.

In fact, their second-innings average of 39.63 is the worst among all teams - it's marginally poorer than Bangladesh's 39.26. And the difference between those two teams and the next poorest - Sri Lanka's 33.20 - is quite significant. New Zealand's first-innings bowling average, on the other hand, is fifth among nine teams.

With New Zealand, though, there's also an argument that they play their home games on pitches which start off favouring seam and pace, and then flatten out into excellent batting strips - the examples given earlier in the piece are all from matches played in New Zealand. However, even when looking only at matches played in New Zealand, the stats for the home team are a bit of an anomaly: in home Tests since 2009, New Zealand's bowlers average 31.24 in the opposition first innings, and 40.57 in the second. In those same matches, opposition bowlers averaged 36.83 in New Zealand's first innings, and 35.45 in the second. The lack of a quality spinner has been a problem for New Zealand as well, but teams like South Africa and Australia have managed fairly well without one. Also, if the pitches tend to ease up later in the matches New Zealand play, that doesn't tend to show up in their own batting stats in the second innings; the averages there drop to 28.80, compared to 34.25 in the first.

In fact, the difference between New Zealand's batting and bowling averages in the second innings - -10.83 - is the highest negative difference among all teams, including Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. On the other hand, South Africa are the best second-innings team, with a positive differential of 9.26, while England, who fought back so magnificently at Lord's in the second innings with both bat and ball, have a positive difference of almost five runs.

Most of the New Zealand batsmen in the list below have a lower second-innings average than their overall number in the last six-and-a-half years, which isn't a surprise given that most batsmen tend to score fewer runs in the second innings. (The overall second-innings average for top-order batsmen since January 2009 is 34.47, compared to 39.45 in both innings.)

However, most of their bowlers have a poorer average as well, which, as explained earlier, isn't the norm for other teams. The difference is marginal for Tim Southee and Trent Boult, but Daniel Vettori was surprisingly ineffective too in the second innings during this period.

In all Tests during this period, there have been 17 draws when teams have held on despite trailing by 200 or more runs after the first innings; in five of those games, New Zealand have held the lead and then failed to finish off the opposition. (Click here for the nine instances when the team batting second took the lead, and here for the eight times when the team batting first took the lead.) With the Lord's result, New Zealand also figure in one out of five instances when a team has lost a Test after leading by 100 or more runs after the first innings.

Brendon McCullum's bold captaincy has captured the imagination of most pundits, but he and the team need to do more work to dispel the notion that New Zealand are a much better team in the first half of a Test match than they are in the second.