Santner’s good turn
For a while on the final day of the first test against Pakistan, it looked as though Mitchell Santner would wind up without a wicket in his return to the Black Caps.
Seamers Kyle Jamieson and Neil Wagner made the breakthroughs at the start of the final session, but after marathon spells, they couldn’t complete the job, so the ball was tossed to the left-arm spinner.
In his 25th over of the match, he trapped Mohammad Abbas lbw to put his side one wicket away, but after his 26th, he was replaced by Tim Southee.
Four overs later he was back – and three balls after that he was leaping in the air to catch Naseem Shah off his own bowling and complete a thrilling 101-run win at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui.
Sitting alongside captain Kane Williamson afterwards, Santner said: ‘‘It was nice to see a couple turn at the end and to contribute to a great bowling effort was good as well.’’
But despite his heroics, which included a run out to end a firstinnings partnership that was frustrating the Black Caps on day three, it remains to be seen what his role in the test team will be going forward.
Santner was explicitly selected for this series as an all-rounder, as coach Gary Stead and fellow selector Gavin Larsen wanted someone who could bat at No 7 ahead of the team’s four frontline seamers – Jamieson, Southee, Wagner, and Trent Boult – if they encountered a pitch where a spinner was needed.
He got the nod ahead of Daryl Mitchell – the seam-bowling all-rounder deputising for Colin de Grandhomme, who has missed the entire summer so far due to injury – at Bay Oval for that very reason, but their positions are likely to be reversed if the pitch for the second test at Hagley Oval in Christchurch is as green as it usually is.
Fellow left-armer Ajaz Patel seems to be the country’s first-choice spinner in the selectors’ minds, but as long as they won’t consider Kyle Jamieson as a No 7 batsman they can’t select Patel and all four of the seam quartet.
Santner’s wicket-taking ability remains a concern – he had taken just one in his last 94 overs before his late double strike – but he showed on Wednesday he can come though when needed, just as he did in his last home test at the same venue last November, when he took three English wickets on the penultimate afternoon to help set up a win.
The two late wickets weren’t Santner’s only contribution at Bay Oval, as he also performed a crucial run out to end the seventh-wicket partnership in Pakistan’s first innings, between Mohammad Rizwan and Faheem Ashraf, who were threatening to deny the Black Caps the lead they needed in their bid to push on for a win.
Coach Gary Stead said yesterday as the team arrived in Christchurch that the run out was one of the ‘‘defining moments’’ in thematch.
‘‘[It] actually swung things back and gave us the chance to have a decent lead.
‘‘Mitch is a great fellow, he’s got a lot of skills, and he’s often pointed to as someone who doesn’t necessarily get results in New Zealand, but New Zealand is a tough, tough place for spin bowlers to play in and he offers a lot to our team.’’