The right stuff
Unrelenting aggression is the basis for Neil Wagner’s success.
World-class but underrated Black Caps (No 2 in an occasional series): Neil Wagner. Left-arm paceman Wagner has a few things in common with wicketkeeper-batsman BJ Watling ( Sport, December 7): they were both born in South Africa, Watling coming to New Zealand when he was 10 while Wagner was playing first-class cricket in the country of his birth when he was recruited by then Otago and future Black Caps coach Mike Hesson; neither plays the short forms of the game internationally; both are approaching their mid-30s – Watling is 34, Wagner will be 34 next March; both are up there with the very best in the world in their specialist areas; and both made ESPN-Cricinfo’s recent list of the 10 most underrated players in test cricket.
Wagner is now the third-ranked test bowler in the world, behind Australia’s Pat Cummins and South Africa’s Kagiso Rabada. He has a better average – runs conceded per wicket taken – and a better strike rate than our senior pace bowlers, Trent Boult and Tim Southee. His strike rate of a wicket every 52 balls bowled is in the top 20 of all time.
Impressive as they are, the statistics don’t convey Wagner’s value to his team. He celebrates each wicket as if it’s his first, approaches each spell at the bowling crease as if it’s his last. He always wants to bowl and will charge in, radiating intensity, until he drops, if that’s what his captain wants.
The late Jerry Collins, perhaps the most feared rugby player of his generation, likened his method to hitting a wall with a sledgehammer until the wall cracks. The relentless Wagner is the cricketing equivalent: the guy no one enjoys playing against.