Dynamic duo are still having a ball
When Tim Southee and Trent Boult took the new ball in the first innings of the Black Caps’ second test against the West Indies earlier this month, they carved out a special place for themselves in the history of test cricket.
It was the 100th time they had lined up as the leaders of the New Zealand attack, more than eight years on from their first outing, at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore in India in August 2012.
Only one other new-ball pair has reached that milestone, as far as Stuff can tell – the indefatigable English combination of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad, who have combined to bowl overs one and two in 181 different innings over the past 12 years.
The next Kiwi pair – Sir Richard Hadlee and Ewen Chatfield – come nowhere close, sharing the new ball in just 29 innings, while some of the other classic combinations that come to mind fall short of the three-figure mark.
Interrogate ESPNCricinfo’s Statsguru for a while and you’ll discover that Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram opened the bowling in 92 test innings, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh did so in 86, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie did so in 82, and Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock did so in
63, all becoming the most-used duos for their respective sides – Pakistan, the West Indies, Australia and South Africa, who also have Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander on 62.
As Boult acknowledged on the eve of the Boxing Day test between the Black Caps and Pakistan at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui, which begins today, it’s an ‘‘amazing’’ achievement, one that will take some matching, whether by another pair of New Zealanders or anyone from around the world.
‘‘I feel like I’ve bowled a lot with Timmy, but not that many times,’’ he says.
‘‘He’s a good friend of mine and I enjoy taking the new ball with him and enjoying a bit of success.’’
The duo have lined up together in 53 of the Black Caps’ last 70 tests, stretching back to Bangalore in
2012, as well as in four more before that, where only one of them got their hands on the new ball, starting with the win over Australia in Hobart in 2011 in Boult’s test debut.
In their 53 matches as the newball combinations, their records are remarkably similar. Southee has bowled 2065 overs, while Boult has bowled 2047.2. Southee has bowled 489 maidens, while Boult has bowled 469. Southee has conceded 5975 runs, while Boult has conceded 6035. And Southee has taken 229 wickets, while Boult has taken 226.
The Black Caps have won 29 of those 53 tests, drawn 10, and lost 14. In the 17 matches where they haven’t both been there to lead the way, the team has won three, drawn five, and lost nine. Only twice in that time have they both been absent, for a draw (against South Africa in 2017) and a loss (against Australia in Sydney at the start of 2020).
It’s an impressive record, one they will hope to add to this weekend and in the new year at Hagley Oval in Christchurch, as the test portion of the home summer concludes, and it’s one that has been made possible because they’ve both been able to avoid serious injuries and stay on the park.
‘‘You have to play for a long period of time to achieve something like that and it’s something we both pride ourselves on, our fitness and our ability to have played all three formats for a long period of time,’’ Southee says.
‘‘We’re fortunate to have an outstanding trainer in Chris Donaldson.
‘‘That’s a massive reason why we’ve been able to stay on the park, and hopefully, touch wood, we can stay on the park for a few more years to come.’’
‘‘We complement each other very well with that left-arm, rightarm combination.’’ Tim Southee
‘‘He’s a good friend of mine and I enjoy taking the new ball with him and enjoying a bit of success.’’ Trent Boult
Southee and Boult were tipped for big things as teenagers coming through the Northern Districts system, hailing from Northland and the Bay of Plenty respectively. They have delivered and then some on the world stage, taking the field together 131 times in all across redball and white-ball cricket.
‘‘We’ve played a lot of cricket together,’’ Southee says.
‘‘We’ve played age-group cricket together, we’ve played domestic cricket together, and for the last nine years we’ve played international cricket together, so we’ve formed that partnership over a long period of time.
‘‘We’re also very good friends, we understand how we both go about our game and we know each other on a personal level pretty well as well.’’
With Southee a right-armer and Boult a left-armer, they are a duo any captain would love to have at their disposal. That synergy has served them well over the years, forcing opposing batsmen to always be on their toes.
‘‘He’s obviously swinging it into a right-hander and I’m swinging it away or I’m swinging it in to a lefthander and he’s swinging it away,’’ Southee says.
‘‘We complement each other very well with that left-arm, rightarm combination. It’s something that seems to have worked for us.’’
The day it perhaps worked the best was March 22, 2018, when Kane Williamson won the toss and sent England in at Eden Park in Auckland, in the first – and to date, only – day-night test played on New Zealand soil.
Boult struck first, reducing the visitors to 16-3 in the eighth over, then Southee got in on the act, and all of a sudden England were 23-8, in danger of recording the lowest score in test cricket history.
They avoided that ignominy, which would have erased the New Zealand team of 1955 from the history books, but soon lost their ninth wicket with their score at 27, before a last-wicket stand of 31 took them to an only slightly more respectable total of 58.
It was the first time that Boult and Southee had been the only bowlers used in a completed test innings and the first time they’d taken all the wickets – something they’d previously done in one-day cricket way back in 2008 at the ICC Under-19 World Cup against Malaysia.
‘‘From a personal point of view it was the test match you dream of,’’ says Boult.
‘‘To go out there and just get it swinging around from ball one against quality opposition in the shape of the English – it was nice to get off to a dream start, then to keep the foot down, and manage to bowl them out for a very low score.
‘‘It was one of those days where things just seemed to happen. As cliched as it sounds, nicks were going straight to the slips, and the ball was nipping back just enough, and it’s definitely up there in our top test-match outings.’’
Boult took six wickets that day while Southee took four, but they repeated the feat of taking all 10 themselves in the next test in Christchurch, with Southee taking six and Boult taking four, though England made a much healthier 307 on that occasion and the match ended in a draw.
All told, Southee and Boult have taken more than half the wickets in an innings a total of 33 times when sharing the new ball and exactly half the wickets a further 16 times, while they’ve only been kept wicketless on five occasions, most recently in Australia’s first innings during the Boxing Day test in Melbourne last year.
They will line up for innings No 102 sharing the new ball at some stage over the next five days, then for No 103, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down.
Since 2016, they have been joined by tireless left-armer Neil Wagner and all-rounder Colin de Grandhomme (currently injured) to form one of the most impressive seam bowling units in world cricket. In 2020, they’ve also welcomed the tall figure of Kyle Jamieson.
As the Black Caps chase two wins over Pakistan to complete a perfect test summer, with a place in the ICC World Test Championship final next June in their sights, there’s no new-ball duo they’d rather have leading the way.