• Home
  • Cricket News
  • Having A Beer With The Team After Five Days Toil Is What Ill Miss The Most Bj Watling To Retire After England Tour

Having a beer with the team after five days’ toil is what I’ll miss the most: BJ Watling to retire after England tour

New Zealand’s test wicket-keeper batsman BJ Watling has decided to call it day on his cricketing career and the Blackcaps’ tour to England this summer would be his last international affair. 

“It’s the right time. It’s been a huge honour to represent New Zealand and in particular, wear the Test baggy,” said Watling announcing the news of his retirement. 

“Test cricket really is the pinnacle of the game and I’ve loved every minute of being out there in the whites with the boys. Sitting in the changing rooms having a beer with the team after five days’ toil is what I’ll miss the most,” added an emotional Durban born, who had to expedite the announcement which he would have made on the tour. 

Due to the central contracts’ announcement in few days, Watling and New Zealand Cricket assumed it would be better to end all sorts of speculation regarding Watling’s career even before they were formed.

The 35-year-old, who represented New Zealand in 73 Tests having made his debut in  2009 as an opening batsman, could however go on to become the most capped New Zealand wicket-keeper if he plays all three games on the tour. 

Adam Parore played 67 games as a wicket-keeper batsman for New Zealand and Watling has already played 65. So if he plays the two Tests against England and then also play the World Test Championship Final against India scheduled to begin on June 18, he will get past Parore. 

Thanking his mother and wife for the help they have bestowed upon him throughout his 17-year long professional career, Watling said, “My wife Jess has been a constant source of stability and support and I’m certainly looking forward to being able to spend more time with her and the kids. 

I also owe a big thanks to my mum for steering me in the right direction early on and always being there for me.”

Watling, who holds the record for most dismissals by a Kiwi wicket-keeper in test cricket with 249 catches and eight stumpings believes that the tour of England could be challenging for him on many levels. 

“This tour will be a challenge on a few levels and we know as a team we will need to be at the very top of our game if we want to succeed,” he said. 

Speaking on the occasion, NZC Chief David White praised Watling for his fighting spirit saying, “BJ turned games around. I can’t think of another player who reacted so positively, and who was successful in the face of adversity.”

“BJ’s been a huge part of the success of the current BLACKCAPS team and on behalf of NZC, I want to wish him well for the upcoming Tests in England and life after cricket,” he added about the Norther Districts player who holds the record for most wicket-keeper -bowler combination dismissals for New Zealand alongside Tim Southee. The two between them have 73 dismissals, the sixth most in the world, only behind the legendary wicket-keepers like Adam Gilchrist, Mark Boucher and Rodney Marsh. 

New Zealand coach Gary Stead too praised Watling, remembering his best ever performance with the bat. “You just have to look at the respect he’s held in by his teammates and the opposition to appreciate his standing in the game,’ he said. 

“That double hundred he scored at the Mount in 2019 was one of the best innings I’ve ever seen and epitomised BJ Watling as a player, really. The attitude and fight he brings to every day and every session of a Test is what has made him such a valued member of the BLACKCAPS,” added the coach.

Watling, who had quite a few record partnerships for the Kiwis in the Test arena, scored his maiden double century, becoming the only wicket-keeper batsman to score a double hundred against England in cricket’s 142-year-old history when he made 205 at Mount Mangunai in 2019. He had 261 runs stand with Mitchell Santner for the seventh wicket. Thanks to his Man of the Match performance, the Blackcaps won the Test series as the second match was drawn, after New Zealand won the first by an innings and 65 runs. 

In total, Watling has so far scored 3777 runs with the help of eight centuries and 14 half-centuries at a healthy average of 38.11 in 114 innings.

Discover more
Top Stories
news

Lasith Malinga might play for Sri Lanka in World T20

Sri Lanka fast bowler Lasith Malinga might be seen donning the Sri Lankan jersey in the World T20 slated to take place in India in later this year. "We will talk to Lasith soon. He is in our plans for the forthcoming T20 tours, including the T20 World Cup coming up in October," said national selection committee chairman Pramodya Wickramasinghe. Wickramasinghe further said that they are looking for a long term plan. "We are working out a long-term plan aiming at the 2023 (50-over) World Cup. There, our main focus is to adjust ourselves to forming an accurate average in terms of two main aspects. Those are the age and the fitness," Wickramasinghe told Morning Sports. The right-arm fast bowler who had bid adieu to ODI cricket was released by the Mumbai Indians franchise ahead of the mini auctions that took place in February in Chennai. He has scalped 170 wickets in 122 matches that he has played for the side. With two back-to-back World T20s lined up in 2021 and 2022, Sri Lanka are seeking services of an experienced player. "There are two back-to-back T20 World Cups that are coming up, this year and next year. We are going to discuss our plans with him when we meet him in the next couple of days," said Wickramasinghe. Malinga too has shown his interest in being a part of the setup. “I also am keen to know how the selection committee is going to get the services of a senior player like me for the national side,” Malinga said.

news

Ramiz Raja is wrong. Only more Tests can help Zimbabwe improve their game

Comments made by former Pakistan opener and now a renowned commentator Ramiz Raja over Pakistan’s complete annihilation of Zimbabwe in a two-match long series has spa rked a new debate on social media. Whether big teams should play Test matches against lower-ranked teams such as Zimbabwe is being discussed profusely. Organising such ‘one-sided Test matches will compel people to watch football or other sports over cricket due to lack of competitiveness between two sides, argued Rameez. He also rebuffed the argument that weaker teams will improve by playing against stronger teams, saying that the Zimbabweans did not improve their performance one bit from the first Test of the series. Raja’s point echoed among many other social media users who went on to say that Zimbabwe should not play Test cricket at all. To this Jarrod Kimber, one of the most followed non-cricketer cricket writers critiqued that teams such as New Zealand, which appears to be one of the best Test team in terms of performances, took 30 long years to taste their first win. However, their journey was not curtailed and their improvement can be established with them reaching the finals of the first World Test Championship. To be fair to Raja though, Zimbabwe were really not up to the mark to challenge Pakistan even for an hour of play. But, the larger question should not be reduced to whether Pakistan or any other team should play Zimbabwe or Ireland. It should have been centred around what the cricketing world has done for Zimbabwe when their own society and repetitive governments failed to let them breathe fresh air? On the point of whether playing regularly against better teams would improve their qualities or not, can Raja be confident that Babar Azam become a world-beater batsman by just hammering around the bowlers from Zimbabwe and Ireland? The answer to that question is clearly no. Raja would do well to go not so far back in time and see how Pakistan fared on the tour of Australia. A player of the quality of Babar Azam was being found out in the first half of the Test series. There were questions marks about his credentials in the longest format before he proved his mastery with the bat when offered an opportunity to bat higher up the order. He would do well to go back and listen to what Ricky Ponting said of the Pakistan bowling attack as well. It would be a tough pill to swallow for Raja as Ponting had said that the Pakistan bowling attack that was playing down under in that series was probably the worst one to have toured down under in a ‘long time.’ Should the ICC or Australia have stopped playing cricket, at least against Pakistan and especially in Australia? Needless to say, Pakistan would dominate the home series on their home pitches or in the UAE. The point of killing competitiveness in Test cricket also appears hollow as great teams such as England, India and Australia have been trounced inside two days on many occasions in the last few years as well. Zimbabwe’s problem is structural and unlike Ireland where the cricketing system can be separated from the problems and complexity of the society, the impact of government and its policies become heavy on the health of the game in Zimbabwe. To prevent the fake ‘quality of Test cricket’ by cancelling or avoiding these one-side matches will be an embarrassment for the game of cricket that wants to achieve global status. Rather than calling off these matches, the International Cricket Council should take the obligation to help these struggling nations such as Zimbabwe and upcoming ones such as Ireland and Afghanistan. It should also put the onus on ‘The Big Three’—India, Australia, and England to increase their involvement in the game with these nations that will work in favour of the overall wellbeing of the game and will propel the grand old bat and ball stop to finally achieve the status a global sport. India have not played a series against Zimbabwe since 2016 while a Test series between the sides dates way back to 2005. Australia last hosted Zimbabwe in 2003 for a Test series while England too hosted the Chevrons way back in 2003 only. Yes, Zimbabwe have not been lucky enough to produce players such as Rashid Khan, Mohammed Nabi or Sandeep Lamichhane who can steer their sides on their own but the ICC and the big daddies of the game can’t be abdicated from the larger responsibilities of allowing and helping the game grow beyond its existing limits. On the contrary, these heavyweights have consolidated their power and control over the ICC in such a manner that it is shrinking the game itself other than in their own backyards, let alone helping it to flourish.