• Home
  • Cricket News
  • Tim Southee Picks 600 International Wickets Stands Behind Only Daniel Vettori Among New Zealanders

Tim Southee picks 600 international wickets, stands behind only Daniel Vettori among New Zealanders

With the opening wicket of Shubman Gill in India’s second innings of the World Test Championship final, Tim Southee has reached a special milestone of becoming the only second New Zealand cricketer to have taken 600 wickets at the international level.  Southee has taken 311 wickets in Test, 190 in the ODI cricket and 90 wickets in the T20Is so far in his career.

He is behind only left-arm spinner and former captain Daniel Vettori, who has had 696 wickets at the international stage and the third man behind him is Sir Richard Hadlee, who had taken 589 wickets.

Southee also made significant progress in his batting achievements as he surpassed former Australian captain Ricky Ponting on the list of leading six-hitter in Test cricket.

Southee has featured in 79 Test matches including the World Test Championship final since making his debut in 2008 against England. He has gone on to become the spearhead of the New Zealand pace attack over the last many years.

He has taken 311 Test wickets at an average of 28.39 runs per wicket and strike rate of 57.28 balls per wicket, while his 190 wickets in ODIs have come at an average of 34.51 and strike rate 37.87. He has not been able to crack the T20 code and has a career economy rate of 8.39 runs per over, but has taken 99 wickets at an average of 24.82.

Discover more
Top Stories
news

Eoin Morgan softens stance on Alex Hales, says 'conversation' will take place at some stage

England white-ball skipper Eoin Morgan has said that the door of England cricket team hasn’t been permanently closed for Alex Hales, who has been out of favour for more than two years after ‘breakdown of trust’ between him and the team management including the skipper Morgn himself. Addressing the pre-match conference before the home series against Sri Lanka, Morgan said that Hales has proved his quality by scoring ample amount of runs around the world. However, he pointed out that England white-ball squads are spoilt for choices as there are number of players for each slot which makes the case tougher for Hales to comeback in the side. "I think he does,” Morgan said in a reply to question if Hales stands a chance to comeback into the England side. “I think when you look at the player that he is and the performances that he puts in around the world, he's a very fine player. But when you look at the players that we have available to us at the moment were spoiled, and I think the longer you spend out of the side the further away you get from the position you once had.” "I think looking at our top order at the moment in particular, even behind our top 3 or 4 we have guys sitting behind there that have drastically improved their performance in the international shirt that are taking up a position." Morgan suggested that way forward for Hales and the team management would be a trilaterla between among him, Hales and the coach Chris Silverwood but lamented the Covid-19 related challenges behind the delay. However, he said that the ‘conversation’ will take place at some stage. "I think there are conversations to be had between Alex, myself and the coach, and potentially a few of the players, but trying to get those happening in Covid times has been an issue. But they could happen at some stage," he said. He did not duck the questions around the tough call on omission of Joe Root from the T20 squad and said that the Test skipper has shown enough keenness to make a comeback. However, like in the case of Hales, Morgan said that players such as Dawid Malan has taken their opportunity to shine at the big stage in absence of Root. "There's no definitive answer on anybody at the moment. Obviously Joe is keen to get back involved when he can. We know the demands on his schedule which have probably led to him not having as many opportunities. But equally with him missing games other guys have come in and done well - Dawid (Malan) I think is a good example of that - but there's no way we're ruling Joe out,” Morgan added. Morgan led the England ODI side to a triumphant campaign in the ICC ODI World Cup 2019 two years back and he is eyeing another feather in his cap with two T20 world cups scheduled at the end of this year and the next year.

news

Windies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite concedes batting failure, issues apology to fans after series loss

Losing the two-match home series 0-2 to South Africa, West Indies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite did not offer any excuse behind dismal batting performances and rather admitted all of it upfront. "We didn't bat well. Full stop,” Brathwaite said in the aftermath of loss at the hands of an impressive South Africa side led by Dean Elgar. West Indies batsmen were blown away by the pace and seam of South African pacer bowlers in both the Tests while the spinner Keshav Maharaj chipped in as well with a hattrick in the final innings of the series. Skipper Brathwaite conceded Windies batsmen did not show enough determination to fight out the strong bowling attack and vowed to come back better. "We're very sorry. We were disappointing. We've got to come back and show that fight. You can't win it all but as batter you have to show fight, show determination, which we didn't. It's still a learning process with some young guys in there and some other guys coming back in. It still not an excuse. We've got to come back better,” Brathwaite said. "Part of the plan obviously was to bat better and have consistent partnerships and big partnerships but we didn't have any. During the series, you can't work on anything technical and Test cricket is all mental. But you always have something to work on as a player. We have a couple of weeks and we could work on a few flaws that we have.” The series loss to South Africa was Brathwaite’s first loss as the captain of the West Indies side since taking over from Jason Holder earlier this year.