Wagner fired up for test
The last time Neil Wagner played against England at Eden Park, it was the most exciting test match he’s ever been involved in.
That one, where the visitors held on on the final afternoon to secure a draw, was his sixth match for the Black Caps, and it started five years ago tomorrow, when he is set to begin his 35th test, against the same opposition at the same venue.
Eden Park has been battered like a pinata this summer, and even if big crowds are expected for the historic day-night fixture, which would justify the decision to play a test there from a commercial point of view, there are many who would prefer this match to have been played somewhere else.
As far as Wagner’s concerned, however, the odd-shaped ground is one where he loves to play – a feeling perhaps heightened by the fact that, as one of the country’s few test specialists, he doesn’t go there two or three times each season in coloured clothing.
‘‘A lot of guys find it funny being a rugby field with quite short dimensions,’’ he said yester- day. ‘‘But just the history there, knowing that Richie McCaw and those guys were out there when they won the World Cup, it’s a pretty special place – when you walk out there you get goosebumps.
‘‘It’s a lovely place to play and I enjoy it, and the two test matches I’ve had there, the England one [in 2013] was probably the most exciting test match I’ve been involved with, so hopefully this can come close to that, and the Indian one [a Black Caps win, in 2014] was an awesome spectacle.
‘‘It’s a good wicket there, and it’s obviously got its challenges with small boundaries, but you just have to adapt to that as soon as you can.’’
Injury concerns have cast a shadow over both teams in the buildup to the test. England have been sweating on whether allrounder Ben Stokes will be able to bowl, and it looks like he will, while the Black Caps can’t lock in Ross Taylor just yet, as he recovers from a quad injury, and have Martin Guptill on hand as a spare batsman if he doesn’t make it.
Wagner wasn’t worrying about any of that yesterday, though, and asked if the Black Caps bowlers had any specific plans for the Eng- land batsmen, he stressed that they were focusing on their own games, rather than their opponents’.
‘‘It’s more about controlling our controllables and doing what we do as a team and looking at what’s been helping us to be successful and doing it for long periods of time.
‘‘If we do that regularly, then success can come our way. It’s bowling in partnerships with two other great bowlers [Tim Southee and Trent Boult], and whoever gets asked to do the job has to do it as best they can.’’
Wagner has crafted a reputation as a man who likes bowling short, and the England batsmen didn’t cope well with the short ball in their last series, the Ashes against Australia, but he said it wouldn’t be his go-to approach.
‘‘If the wicket allows it, and the ball isn’t really swinging a lot, you’ve obviously got to try to find a way of getting a dismissal or challenging the batsman to get a bit of fault in their footwork, or something like that to create a little bit of something.
‘‘I guess it’s about summing up the conditions and seeing if the wicket allows it then taking it from there.’’