We built up towards the win, says Hesson

New Zealand coach believes luck has not been in their favour.

WELLINGTON:

New Zealand coach Mike Hesson conceded that at times in the past 12 months he had felt the cricketing gods were conspiring against his side winning a Test match after putting themselves in a position to do so.

New Zealand had not won a Test since they beat Sri Lanka in Colombo in November 2012, a match that ended with Brendon McCullum replacing Ross Taylor as captain.

Under McCullum, the team had failed to win a Test, having drawn six and lost four games before they clinched their first win with an innings and 73 run victory over West Indies in the second Test in Wellington on Friday.

On at least four of those previous occasions, however, New Zealand had been in a position where they could have broken that duck and won the game. None more so than in the third Test against England in March when Matt Prior saved the tourists at Eden Park with a century, and against West Indies last week in Dunedin when rain halted the game when New Zealand needed 33 runs to win.



“Yeah, I think there was,” said Hesson when asked if he had at times felt the luck of the game was never going to go New Zealand’s way.

“When the ball bounced on Prior’s stumps and ricocheted quite a distance there were a few of us looking at each other and going ‘what have we done here?,” he added of a delivery at Eden Park that Prior survived.

“Then Dunedin was a few things down there that occurred where you wondered ‘when was it going to turn?’.

“I guess for it to change so quickly yesterday was satisfying for the guys.

“We have put in a lot of work in different Tests ... and it just hasn’t worked for us so now we’re all pretty delighted that the win has come.” Hesson, like McCullum, had felt that it was a matter of time before they claimed the win, believing the team was slowly improving from match to match and getting more consistent in their bowling and batting.

“It’s not a win in isolation. It’s something we have built up over a period of time and we know that we haven’t nailed it yet, but this is just another step forward for this team.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2013.

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