Left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner ensures New Zealand do not miss spin legend Daniel Vettori and has become one of the driving forces in the Black Caps' playing XI
New Zealand's Mitchell Santner celebrates the wicket of Rohit Sharma on Day One of the first Test against India at Kanpur last week. Pic/AP
When Daniel Vettori called it quits from the game immediately after the ICC World Cup last year, one wondered if there'd be another Vettori?
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The worry was short-lived. Ever since he bulldozed his way through the Indian batting line-up in Nagpur during the ICC World T20 in March, Hamilton-born left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner has been on a consistent rise. His 4-11 at the Jamtha were the best figures by a Kiwi spinner in T20s.
Six months since — this Vettori-ish all-rounder continues to be one of the driving forces in the Black Caps’ playing XI.
The Kanpur Test had a lot of twists and turns literally, thanks spinners R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who ensured the visitors were in a spin and India powered to a 197-run win in its 500th Test. But while Virat Kohli & Co have a psychological edge going into the second Test in Kolkata, the visitors too have taken quite a few positives — one that stands out is the lanky Santner, who showed his prowess with the willow too.
One of the reasons skipper Kane Williamson will be hoping for a better fight at Eden Gardens from Friday will be this stat: Santner became the first player from his country to aggregate more than 100 runs and five wickets (during the Kanpur Test) in a Test since 2011. And ingterestingly, the only player to have accomplished the feat before him was Vettori.
Daniel Vettori
In addition to wickets, runs have been fairly kind to Santner. He scored a boundary off the first ball in his debut Test against Australia in Adelaide, which also marked the first Day-Night Test. “I just wanted to get off the mark. I was lucky enough to see the first ball going for four, so I have to calm the nerves down a bit,” Santner had told this correspondent when the NZ team arrived in Mumbai for the ICC World T20.
In eight Tests, Santner has an economy rate of 2.69 and strike of 41.50. And inevitably there’s only one person he can really relate to. “I grew up watching a lot of Vettori over the years. I was lucky enough to play with him in my first season for domestic cricket. It was pretty special. I still stay in touch with him.
“I had a little conversation about his style of bowling here in India and he shared his theories of what he did here which was pretty successful.” Santner said. And though he resembles Vettori a lot, he specified that he wears contacts and “doesnt’t want to look like Vettori too much wearing glasses.”
Santner has already shown glimpses of what he’s capable of and is certainly one such player on whom the Kiwis will pin their hopes to rescue them from precarious situations. Popularly known as ‘the next Vettori’ in Black fern land, Santner has still yet to achieve his prized possession—the wicket of Virat Kohli.
Take the good, the bad and the ugly and look forward to Kolkata was the message from Williamson in Kanpur. The sour story aside, watch out for Santner—the mindset is in the right direction, a little grooming and patience will take him to the next level. A Twitter user rightly commented on the last day of the Test: “Slowly getting convinced that Vettori took off his glasses, got a clean shave and changed his name to Mitchell Santner.”
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