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Fresh series in sight, Neil Wagner recalls 'heartbreaking' memories against England at Lord's

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New Zealand will start their campaign on the tour of England with a Test match against the hosts at Lord’s, and pacer Neil Wagner has all the ‘heartbreaking’ memories of losing a World Cup final in 2019 fresh in his mind. While he accepted that the Blackcaps should move on from that episode, he conceded the defeat was a ‘tough pill to swallow' for his teammates. 

“I do feel some of the boys will be a bit raw. Some memories will come back which will hurt because it was a tough pill to swallow. It could have been a monumental day in their lives and it ended up being heartbreaking. At the same time, you’ve got to move forward. Opportunities to play England at Lord’s are very rare. I think they’ll shake it off,” Wagner said in a virtual press conference from his hotel room in Southampton.

He also has some memories of a historic low of 68 all out in the Test series of 2013. Wagner said that he was reminded by their routing by the pair of James Anderson and Stuart Broad on a cloudy day at Lord’s through a Facebook video.

“It’s funny. I’ve been on Facebook this morning and there was a video of Broad running through us with seven wickets. It was a typical Lord’s day with cloud cover and it fell nicely into their hands. But England are quality opposition in their own conditions and Anderson and Broad are even better now,” Wagner said.

It was a bad game personally for Wagner himself, who was very young in his Test career and was not quite sure about his role and skills in the longest format.

“Back then, I wasn’t really established in the team. I was still vying for my spot and trying to prove my worth,” Wagner added.

Wagner said that with time he realised that there was no point competing with the pair of Trent Boult and Tim Southee who were superb with the new ball with the amount of swing they had in their arsenal. 

Hence, he decided to work on offering another dimension to the New Zealand pace attack and therefore adopted the role of an ‘enforcer’ who would test the mettle and patience of batsmen with short and skidding deliveries onto their bodies.

“We’ve got two guys in the team in Trent and Tim who are extremely good with the swinging ball," he said. "Rather than try to compete with that, I wanted to offer something different, to complement them. The left-arm angle does help. There aren’t many lefties in the world who do it like me. I’m also a bit shorter, so the ball comes through quite skiddy,” Wagner assessed his journey.

The change in mindset and gaining clarity over his role worked wonders for both the Blackcaps and Wagner as he has broke into the top three of the ICC Test rankings for bowlers. He has been an instrumental figure behind New Zealand’s journey into the final of the World Test Championship with 32 wickets from seven Test matches at a staggering average fo 22.50 runs per wicket.

Earlier this year, in a true testimony to his character, in a Test match against Pakistan, Wagner bowled his heart out despite two of his toes being fractured. When asked, the left armer said that the Blackcaps needed to win both the Tests against Pakistan to reach the WTC final and hence he decided to put his body on the line. 

“It was awful. I kept thinking, why am I doing it? But I wanted to be part of it all. We needed to win both Tests to get to the final, and it was about playing for the team. I’m glad I did it,” Wagner said.

He said that playing for New Zealand is matter of pride for him and hence he never lacks passion even when he is asked to bowl tough and long spells of bowling.

“I like to play with passion. I love playing for New Zealand. It’s not always easy to bowl long spells of short-pitched stuff but it’s something I take a lot of pride in.”

Wagner’s role in the team will be ever so important as Trent Boult has not flown to the UK to join the squad for the two-match long series against hosts. Kane Williamson will back Wagner to continue producing match-winning spells as he has been doing in the last few years, especially back home.

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