"I take a lot of pride in bowling long spells of short-pitched stuff"

The indefatigable left-arm paceman from New Zealand, Neil Wagner said he enjoys bowling dirty and painful overs and has never tried to compete with his long-term bowling partners Tim Southee and Trent Boult. The 35-year-old is a passionate cricketer and would do anything for his team, including bowling tirelessly with broken toes to help his team win a Test. Wagner is Kane Williamson's go-to man in the game's longest format, especially on unfriendly surfaces.

"We’ve got two guys in the team in Trent and Tim who are extremely good with the swinging ball. 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 told the Daily Mail (UK).

"It was awful (on bowling with broken toes against Pakistan in December 2020). 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. 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."

The Black Caps have made it to the inaugural World Test Championship final, where they will come face to face against Virat Kohli and Co. in Southampton. However, before the all-important final, New Zealand are scheduled to play two Tests against England at Lord's (June 2-6) and Edgbaston (June 10-14) respectively. The last time Wagner played a Test at Lord's was in May 2013, in which New Zealand were blown away by Stuart Broad in the second innings.

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

Since then, Wagner has proved his worth and is currently the third-ranked bowler in Test cricket, only behind Pat Cummins and R Ashwin. Since 2019, Wagner has a better bowling average and strike rate than Southee and Boult. Wagner also knows that it won't be easy for his teammates to return to Lord's, where they lost to England in the 2019 World Cup final by the "barest of margins".

"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."