NZ yet to plug McCullum-sized hole in top order

There was a Brendon McCullum-sized hole in the New Zealand team after he had retired. McCullum wasn't like other batsmen in any way. There are only thirteen players who have scored at better than run-a-ball in the first ten overs since the last World Cup (min 50 balls faced). Sharjeel Khan has the second best strike-rate (123.47) in this period, but McCullum was up at 172.5. McCullum could score at roughly twice the speed of Rohit Sharma or Aaron Finch in those overs. If he stayed in, you had an extra opener out there.

In the last two years of McCullum's ODI career, New Zealand scored 59 in the first ten overs. Since his ODI retirement, that number has slipped to 52. That, however, is only the value over the first ten overs: he could score quicker than anyone else the longer he stayed in. And the best stat for McCullum would really be the amount of broken bowlers he piled up - bowlers with T20 death figures who still had seven or eight overs to finish in the day.

McCullum will be at this tournament as a commentator. His successor, Kane Williamson, admitted McCullum's absence changes things.

"Not many other teams in the world had Brendon McCullum either, which was fortunate for us," Williamson said. "But players move on. They retire, which is obviously what Brendon did from the international game, and your team takes a slightly different shape."

That means the primary tactic that New Zealand had used to make the 2015 World Cup final is completely worthless. The last two years with McCullum they won 27 and lost 15 against Test playing nations. Since then their record is ten wins and ten losses.

Williamson said that all 15 players are fit, meaning that New Zealand have a choice to use either Luke Ronchi, who scored a half-century in one of their warm-up games, or Tom Latham. At the other end will be Martin Guptill, the man Kane Williamson described as "possibly our best white-ball cricketer".

Guptill is not just an ODI double-century maker; he's an English ODI champion. In 11 ODIs here he's scored three fifties, two hundreds and averages 62 at nearly run a ball. He is a different kind of player compared to McCullum, but if you were to pick an opener for the Champions Trophy, there aren't many you'd pick before him. Since the last World Cup, he has averaged 55 in ODIs at better than a run a ball and has scored at an elite strike-rate of 116. He has scored at better than a run a ball against spin and if he bats big, and he likes to bat big, he can destroy bowlers in the slog overs. His five most significant scores are not-outs.

With Guptill, Williamson and Taylor all laying platforms, it means that if Ronchi were chosen to open, he could have full license to attack. But, most importantly, it would also allow New Zealand to improve on their weaker slog batting through a one-two punch of any combination that includes Jimmy Neesham, Corey Anderson and Colin de Grandhomme to go cray cray in the final overs. With Anderson bowling, he becomes an obvious selection and that doesn't give them just an extra hitter, but probably one of the top five batsmen in the world who can score well over two runs a ball in the death overs.

While the options before them are a positive, their preparation for this tournament has hardly been ideal. Players came in from various IPL franchises or off bench time and their second warm-up against Sri Lanka was played on an under-nine sized ground to protect the Edgbaston square. Williamson, however, remained upbeat.

"I suppose just the nature of international cricket and the various other competitions that attract players from around the world," he said. "It just sort of is what it is. We've had a number of guys involved in cricket, which is the main thing. Coming here, couple of warm-up games. One very short boundary in our second warm-up game but the surface was pretty good and was a pretty good exercise all around."

In the World T20 last year in India, New Zealand went with a horses-for-courses selection plan, trying to use as much spin as they could. If they continue to adopt that strategy, one could expect them to overload with seam in their first game.

"It's just about trying to be as smart as we can be in the conditions that you're presented with, and I think every team tries to do that as well as they can," Williamson said. "We've seen that probably in the clashes that we've had in recent times in the series in very different conditions, I suppose, being in Australia and being in New Zealand. So it's important that both teams make those adjustments as quickly as possible coming here to Edgbaston."

New Zealand haven't been able to make the changes they have needed to remain successful since McCullum's retirement. That hole is still there. The Champions Trophy doesn't really allow for slow starts, so whatever they have planned as adjustments will have to work on Friday against Australia. Otherwise, while McCullum commentates on the finals, New Zealand will be watching from their sofas.