Guts, sweat and tears
Lion-hearted pace bowler abruptly pulls stumps on test career
Neil Wagner ended his stellar test career as he started it – with a fiery desire to prove his doubters wrong. He played 64 tests carrying that desire with him always, using it as a motivational weapon against all comers, despite the physical toll it brought – and the Black Caps benefited massively from it.
Wagner’s surprise retirement from international cricket on the eve of the test series against Australia was sparked by being told he wasn’t good enough.
The 37-year-old had spotted the signs – he missed selection for the first test against his former South African countrymen, and then was the sixth bowler used in the second innings of the second test.
His gestures at Seddon Park – a raised middle finger, a finger to the lips – illuminated his rage against the dying of the light.
When not wanted for the XI to play at the Basin Reserve tomorrow, the Pretoriaborn paceman decided, after nearly 20 years of proving people wrong when deemed unworthy, that it was finally time to end the fight.
Wagner’s association with New Zealand cricket began when he couldn’t establish himself in South Africa as a young quick bowler.
He moved to England to play club cricket in an attempt to land a county contract, and had trials with Sussex and Hampshire, but also struggled to get a deal in the UK. He eventually headed to New Zealand to play for Otago, after being spotted by then-coach Mike Hesson, later to be in charge of the national side featuring Wagner.
But becoming a regular – and a valued performer – in the test team required Wagner to make massive changes, turning himself from a tearaway quick bowler who regularly castled wickets and trapped batters lbw, to a man entrusted to bowl long spells with an old ball and to continually trouble and dismiss the world’s best batters with a barrage of short-pitched deliveries.
So instead of competing against Tim Southee and Trent Boult for a place in the side with the new ball, Wagner emerged as the perfect foil for that duo as New Zealand produced the best years of their test history.
He was New Zealand’s indispensable nasty fasty, despite being neither nasty by nature, nor scary with speed.
Manchester United won a vast collection of silverware with a side featuring the silky skills of David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, but their trophy cabinet would have been significantly less than brimming without the spit and snarl of Roy Keane, Jaap Stam and Nemanja Vidic.
That’s what Wagner brought every time to the test table – given an old ball on a flat track with the opposition batters flourishing, the warhorse would paw at the turf at the top of his mark and charge* in, ball after ball, over after over, subjecting his rivals to a relentless test of their abilities.
There were times when Wagner, in his prime, wasn’t wanted for the 1st XI, and every time it felt questionable at the bare minimum. Most times, it looked extremely ill-advised afterwards.
When he was pummelled in the second innings by Bazballing England at Bay Oval last February, critics and fans alike were predicting the end of his career.
But Wagner used the added fuel to push himself to engineer a dramatic onerun win in the second test at the Basin Reserve.
If that wasn’t enough to cement his legacy, he ended the following test against Sri Lanka in Christchurch with a herniated disc and a torn hamstring, but still sprinted and dived for the match-winning bye off the last ball in tandem with Kane Williamson.
It summed up his contribution to New Zealand cricket – the desire and ability to play through pain, the necessity to do the dirty work so the team could succeed.
In doing so, he became one of the country’s most admired sports stars.
Australian cricket scribes had been eagerly anticipating Wagner’s short-ball barrage against the world test champions, after he regularly troubled Steve Smith in their 2019-20 series.
But the 2024 version isn’t the Neil Wagner of old, it’s the old Neil Wagner version, and the brains trust again decided there were better, younger, sharper options.
“I get a lot of joy out of doing something and seeing what it means to other people,” Wagner said last month. “And when you feel valued, appreciated, that’s when I play my best cricket.”
No longer fully valued or appreciated, Wagner departed the arena after one last passionate burst from a mindset which propelled him into a permanent place in New Zealand cricket folklore.
He was New Zealand’s indispensable nasty fasty, despite being neither nasty by nature, nor scary with speed.