Chris Nevin and Mark Gillespie are men of such like personality, players whose approach to cricket is so similarly uncomplicated, twins in temperament and disposition, that they became ideal collaborators today when Wellington needed an answer to a
Steve McMorran12-Feb-2001Chris Nevin and Mark Gillespie are men of such like personality, players whose approach to cricket is so similarly uncomplicated, twins in temperament and disposition, that they became ideal collaborators today when Wellington needed an answer to a dire situation on the first day of their Shell Trophy match against Otago at the Basin Reserve.Neither made a hundred, though both deserved to as, in concert, they helped Wellington recover from 51/5 before lunch to 272 in their first innings after they had lost the toss and been forced to bat first on a green and gently seaming pitch.And they collaborated as wicket-keeper and bowler on the cunningly-conceived dismissal of a key player, Matt Horne, as Otago were left 42/3 in timid response when bad light stopped play 30 minutes before scheduled stumps.Nevin was out for 99 a few minutes before tea, ending a partnership with Gillespie which added 127 in 102 minutes and helped Wellington put on 150 at a cost of two wickets in a second session in which the tide of the match turned. The Wellington wicket-keeper later chided himself, not for missing his second Trophy century when he sweetly hooked a delivery from Craig Cumming directly to Chris Gaffaney at square leg, but for being out so close to an interval.Gillespie, who was then 61 having passed 50 for the first time in Trophy cricket, ran out of partners before he could complete a maiden century and was 81 not out when Wellington’s innings ended. But he didn’t regret being so deprived. His attitude mirrored Nevin’s and he was more concerned with doing good for his team than for himself.”I just wanted to take every ball as it came and stay there as long as I could,” Gillespie said later, as Nevin listened. “I wouldn’t have minded getting 30 if Sos (Nevin) had got 200.””I wouldn’t have minded either,” Nevin said.Sparks flew between the two as they remembered their partnership at the early close of the first day. Both tried to say the right things – about their determination to stay at the wicket for the good of the team, to leave the good balls and punish the bad, to occupy the crease as long as they could.That was certainly the approach their team’s position had warranted when they came together at 116/7 on the dismissal of Andrew Penn, and after Nevin had slightly improved Wellington’s position in partnerships with Penn and Stephen Mather.But, in truth, it wasn’t how they approached their joint crisis. They attacked the bowling with unbridled vigour and they changed the course of the innings not with any dogged rearguard action but with a flamboyant cavalry charge.”I’d been watching a bit and I wasn’t quite sure what the pitch was doing but I noticed there were a few balls to leave and so I went out intending to leave a few and punish the bad ball when it came along,” Nevin said.”You didn’t leave many,” a reporter observed.”No, actually, I don’t like to leave them,” Nevin conceded. “Some opening batsmen like to leave but I like to feel the ball on the bat. I’d rather hit them than leave them.”Nevin is far too uncomplicated to play semantic games about any of his innings. He realises that he is a strokemaker and he attempts to be that in any situation, refusing to be cowed by circumstance. He would bat in the same style at 500/5 or 50/5 and he saw the humour in pretending otherwise.Gillespie, also, played the game of pretending responsibility. He could play a straight bat, he said. There had been many occasions in his career when he had been forced to play stout defence – he recalled his 30 in Wellington’s tiny first innings against Northern Districts at Hamilton two weeks ago.”I blocked a few that day,” he said.”No you didn’t … you yahooed every ball,” Nevin said. “You’ve never blocked one in your life.”So it was – that there was such chemistry between these two players that they saw in a second through the others’ polite fabrications.The truth was, and they both knew it, that they blasted Wellington out of trouble today. There was no subtlety in their contribution and they tired of pretending it.”If it’s there you have to hit it,” Gillespie said. “I don’t muck around. Regardless of the situation, if it’s there and you’re an aggressive player you hit it. It messes you up if you try to do anything else.”Gillespie was certainly direct in his approach. Here was Wellington struggling to assemble anything like a competitive total, seven wickets down and backs to the wall, and he steps in and hurls deliveries from Craig Pryor and Paul Wiseman over the bowlers’ heads for six. So too Nevin, whose 165-minute innings included 17 boundaries.”As most people know I’m pretty strong on the cut and the pull and if the ball’s in the slot I’m going to hit it,” Nevin said. “I’m striking it pretty well at the moment. I got 80 down in Christchurch and I feel I’m hitting it okay so I like to have a go.”If Nevin were a more complex character he might, with politics aforethought, have made reference to his innings in the context of his recent rejection by the New Zealand selectors for a place in their one-day side to meet Pakistan. He didn’t. It would not have been his style.”I have no problem with not being selected,” he said. “I just want to get some runs. I’ve got a few 20s and 30s and maybe the odd 50 this season and that’s no reason to be selected for an international side. If I get a few more big scores, I might have something to crow about.”He had no doubt, however, that today’s innings, in its valuable context, was the best he has played in Trophy cricket. Never has he done more to turn the tide of the match.He faced a total of 137 balls in an innings which began with Wellington 51/5, straddled lunch when they were 89/5 and ended just before tea when they were 243/8. Nor has Gillespie done more in the cause of the collective good than he did today. He batted 132 minutes – his longest first-class innings and he hit nine fours and two sixes.They then offered further evidence of the merits of their co-operation when they combined to remove Horne for 14 early in Otago’s innings. They had seen Horne chase a short one in the first over so they brought up third man, tempted him another short ball and closed the well-laid trap when Horne flashed and finely edged the ball into Nevin’s upraised glove.Mark Richardson was out for 1, Craig Cumming for 12 and Otago – after being so firmly in charge of the match in the first session, found themselves in a much more even contest.