Neil Wagner, the Black Cap who bowls like a big, bruising Saffer
THE shadows were longer than usual when Neil Wagner stood his mark at St George’s Park in January 2013‚ ready to steam in and bowl for New Zealand in the second Test against SA.They were cast not by the stands but by the culture that had delivered the left-arm seamer to international cricket — by his decision to abandon that culture for the supposedly greener grass on the other side of the world.Wagner was born and raised in Pretoria and played 20 first-class matches in SA before joining the growing Saffer cricket diaspora after the 2007-08 season. And here he was in Port Elizabeth‚ ball in hand and about to try to bite the biltong from the hand that used to feed him. But‚ by the end of the SA’s first innings‚ there was little to suggest he had been cut from the cloth of the big, bristling South African fast bowler.Graeme Smith gloved a limp legside bouncer to the wicketkeeper‚ Wagner’s only success in 33 overs in which he conceded 135 runs.On Thursday, Wagner again stood at his mar...
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