Cricket, eh!
Somehow — even though we watched, somehow still seems the best description — the Black Caps snatched the most dramatic of wins against England at the Basin Reserve yesterday.
Neil Wagner celebrated like a demented bull on steroids. The left-arm pace bowler does that.
Something else the 36-year-old does is bowl New Zealand to victory against the odds.
He has form in that department. But even by his standards this was quite extraordinary.
Poor old James Anderson, owner of nearly 700 test wickets, was the last hurdle.
He got a tickle down the legside and the keeper Tom Blundell snaffled it up to seal the win by one run.
One more time. By. One. Run.
Let’s not talk about the ball before. It looked very much like a wide.
Let’s not talk about Harry Brook seemingly doing his best to bring Wagner’s international career to an end with a couple of savage batting assaults on our favourite adopted South African during the series.
Let’s not talk about the first-innings batting collapse which was only rescued from utter disaster by an innings of complete hope by Tim Southee.
He clobbered 73 from 49 and how valuable was that in the final analysis? The Black Caps still had to follow on, though.
Former captain Kane Williamson struck a century and moved past Ross Taylor at the top of the New Zealand run-scoring chart.
Great knock that. It gave the home team a lead (257 runs) it could defend — only just, as it turns out.
That set the stage for Wagner. He removed Ollie Pope and picked up the key wickets of Ben Stokes and Joe Root when they looked to be carrying their team to victory.
There were other talking points, but years from now all anyone will really remember is how Wagner steamed in and took four for 62 to orchestrate victory against an English team playing test cricket on a different level.
