Cricket: No turning back for Wagner

Otago bowler Neil Wagner in action. Herald photo / Paul Estcourt

Neil Wagner may be something of a master apprentice of reverse swing but he is not about to reverse his decision to throw his lot in with New Zealand.

Providing he keeps in shape, the South African born and developed cricketer is seemingly assured to ticking off another career ambition come next April when he qualifies to play for his adopted country.

Fresh from an outstanding Plunket Shield campaign, in which he took 51 wickets at an average of 18.15 for Otago, the left-arm fast bowler has reaffirmed his desire to play for New Zealand.

Wagner told NZPA today he had already rebuffed two approaches to return to the country of his birth to pursue his career at international level and he promised to stand his ground should more offers come his way.

He returns shortly to Pretoria to spend the New Zealand off-season among family and friends while coaching at an academy.

"I have made a commitment and I want to represent New Zealand," he said from Dunedin.

"It would be a massive honour and privilege for me to represent New Zealand.

"But I still have a lot of hard work to do yet. I have another year to go and that time enables me to gain more experience and get better at what I do."

Those words will be warmly welcomed at New Zealand Cricket headquarters where the hunt is on for quality fast bowlers to help the faltering national side fight above their weight on the international stage.

Wagner, 25, has shown more than enough in three seasons with Otago that he has the goods.

He has taken 100 wickets for the province at 26.73, with domestic opposition finding him a handful due to his lively pace - he regularly tops 140km/h - angle of delivery and a highly useful ability to reverse swing the older ball.

All those attributes represent a challenging package if you are holding a bat 22 yards away.

Beyond the bald statistics, though, Wagner is also a keenly intelligent young man who originally decided to develop his career in New Zealand because he tired of the intrusion of politics on the sport in his homeland where a player's progress was not guaranteed on merit alone.

"I just wanted to go to a place where if I did a lot of hard work, put in the hard yards and put performances on the table that I would get selected. That's the way cricket should be."

He is chuffed with his form this summer for Otago and his haul of 51 wickets is just the third instance of a bowler taking 50 or more for his province in one season. The only other man to achieve the feat is left-arm spinner Stephen Boock, who took 53 for Otago in 1978-79, one season after taking 52 for Canterbury.

"It was a dream season. I set out my goals and aimed quite high. I wanted to take 50 wickets and I was really stoked to do that."

Wagner credits any number of players, past and present, for sharing their inside knowledge on the highly valued art of swing bowling.

As a young player emerging in South Africa, he tapped into some of the better brains in the game to accelerate the education process, cherry picking the best ideas and then formulating his own.

The likes of Dale Steyn, Jacques Kallis and Allan Donald gave freely of their time while, since settling in Dunedin, Otago coach Mike Hesson and former international Ian Butler have also shared their ideas.

"At the end of the day, though, you need to teach yourself," Wagner said.

"You play around with it in the nets, work with the ball and you try to adapt to certain conditions, to certain weather types, and you see what works on what certain sort of day.

"It's about experiencing something to learn it. I have probably taken in seven points of view from the people I have learnt off. Each person has their own method of doing it and you end up taking a little bit of everything, put them together and see what happens."

He has also closely studied footage of Pakistan's former two-man hit squad Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in their pomp as well as current Indian left-armer Zaheer Khan, three men who delivered or deliver the swinging ball at pace with telling results.

"If you want to go that next step and play cricket at international level being able to reverse the ball is very valuable," Wagner said.

"I have had a relatively successful career so far but I want to come back next season even better and stronger and be more consistent."

Wagner was the talk of many towns this week when he took five wickets in one over against Wellington at Queenstown en route to career best figures of six for 36.

It was head spinning stuff and unprecedented at first-class level in the game's long and storied past.

Wagner said he was still pinching himself.

"It's been a crazy couple of days. When I woke up on Thursday morning my first thought was `was it all a dream'.

"I still couldn't believe it and even a day later I still don't. It still hasn't sunk in and I'm still stunned. It was a once in a lifetime type of thing."

- NZPA