Out there in the middle, Neil Wagner is one of cricket’s most menacing prospects. Broad shoulders, veins throbbing, a wicket-taking roar and bouncer after bouncer… after bouncer – the New Zealand fast bowler has made a name for himself as a man who gives no inch to the poor guy at the other end.

But as he greets Wisden.com over a Zoom call, there’s a big smile. And so there should be: we’re speaking just weeks on from New Zealand’s victory in the inaugural World Test Championship. Wagner, who took 35 wickets at an average of 22.97 in the tournament, is here to take us through the key moments in a momentous two-year cycle.

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Sri Lanka v New Zealand

August 2019
Two-match series drawn 1-1

On July 14, 2019, New Zealand hearts are shattered. In a World Cup final no one will ever forget, England triumph in the Super Over at Lord’s by virtue of a superior boundary count after the scores are tied. As one global tournament ends, another begins: the World Test Championship kicks off with the Ashes and continues with New Zealand’s visit to Sri Lanka. But the wounds are still present when the Test squad assembles, as Wagner – a red-ball specialist – explains.

NW: There wasn’t a big gap between the World Cup and then going to Sri Lanka, and a lot of the guys who were part of the final were in Sri Lanka. When we got together as a group there were a lot of people who didn’t look like they actually wanted to play cricket at the time. It was hard for them to put what had happened behind them.

There were a lot of guys who weren’t part of that tournament coming into the group with a lot of energy – the likes of myself and BJ Watling – who were really looking forward to the challenge of the World Test Championship. We brought in a lot of energy, but you could see that the other guys were still affected by what had happened.

When we got there, the manager of the group, Mike Sandle, got them [the World Cup players] all together and went into the team room. The other Test guys were still in their rooms. Afterwards, we then got invited to join this meeting. When we walked in there, you could see something had fallen off their shoulders. I don’t know what was discussed and what happened but you could see it was a turning point for a lot of the guys. We just sat down with them to talk about everything that’s not to do with cricket, caught up with one another, and you could see that it was good that happened. You could see there was a different sort of energy and the guys were ready for the World Test Championship.

Every single was cheered loudly in the changing room. It was like we were playing a T20 match. In Test matches you don’t always cheer a single or a run. You get the odd four where someone claps. To hear every run cheered, it was pretty special. We knew how much hard work went into every run. We all had our different seats; we didn’t want to move. It wasn’t till there was about 20 runs left that we all got together as a group and it started hitting home. It was pretty amazing to see the energy in the changing room, how everyone felt and what it meant.

Ross hit the winning runs with Kane there next to him – New Zealand fans couldn’t have asked for two better and more fitting people to take us through. To see what it was like for them out in the middle, to see the celebrations in the changing room and what it meant for everyone around us, the feeling was amazing and hard to describe. Knowing what we’d been though as a team for a number of years, to being able to be where we are now and achieve that was just an amazing feeling.