Always known to be a team of quiet overachievers, New Zealand have set up a fast-bowling system that is producing quicks like clockwork.
Ben Sears might not have made it to the XI for the last two ODIs of the Pakistan series if not for Mark Chapman's injury in the first match. As it happened, Sears picked up back-to-back five-wicket hauls in the second and third ODIs, joining an elite club no other New Zealander belongs to. Sears finished the three-match series with ten wickets, the most across both sides.
Preceding the ODIs were five T20Is against the same opponents. There, Jacob Duffy was the highest wicket-taker with 13. In the Champions Trophy before that, Matt Henry picked 10, and in the ODI tri-series that served as a precursor to the Champions Trophy, Will O'Rourke took six.
Four different seamers have ended up as the highest wicket-takers for New Zealand in their last four series, a testament to the incredible depth they possess.
With three veterans – Tim Southee, Neil Wagner, and Trent Boult – stepping away from the international game, New Zealand, like any other team, should have faced some turbulent times with their pace attack. Between them, Southee, Boult, and Wagner claimed 1,647 wickets for New Zealand. Wagner didn't play international white-ball cricket, but out of the 40 Tests the trio played together, New Zealand lost only eight. Their last Test together came in 2022, a decade after their first.
Such long-standing impact is never easy to replace, but New Zealand's well-oiled conveyor belt of fast bowlers has meant that not only are they not struggling, they are competing at the top of international cricket across formats and have quietly completed a seamless (pun intended) transition.
The leadership mantle has quietly but surely gone to Henry, now 33, particularly in the longer formats. His mastery of the scrambled seam stock ball has reached a level no other quick in the world matches right now. Since the start of 2023, no other fast bowler has taken more wickets in international cricket than Henry’s 136, and only Jasprit Bumrah, Pat Cummins, and Mohammed Shami have taken more five-wicket hauls than his four.
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Fast bowlers with most international wickets since 2023
| Player | Inns | Wickets | BBI | Ave | Econ | SR | 5 |
| Matt Henry (New Zealand) | 66 | 136 | 7/67 | 22.31 | 4.08 | 32.8 | 4 |
Shaheen Shah Afridi (Pakistan) | 75 | 126 | 5/54 | 26.56 | 5.48 | 29 | 1 |
Jasprit Bumrah (India) | 54 | 124 | 6/45 | 15.26 | 3.37 | 27.1 | 5 |
Alzarri Joseph (West Indies) | 72 | 118 | 5/40 | 29.07 | 5.62 | 31 | 2 |
Mitchell Starc (Australia) | 67 | 117 | 6/48 | 29.85 | 4.57 | 39.1 | 3 |
To go with his unerring accuracy and consistency, New Zealand have Will O’Rourke – ten years Henry’s junior – bustling with raw talent, speed, and height that has fast bowling enthusiasts hooked. He’s already had a successful Test tour of India where he played an important role (seven wickets at 18.4) in a seismic series win. At 23, he is primed for a long international career that should see him take over from his senior once he leaves.
Between the senior pro and young hot property is the battle-hardened Jacob Duffy. Having made his senior domestic debut in 2012, Duffy took eight years to break into the New Zealand side and another four years to start getting regular game time, but has seen a rise so meteoric in T20Is that he’s now No.1 in the ICC’s rankings following the Pakistan series. While he’s not played Tests yet, Duffy already has 299 first-class wickets and looks ready to ply his trade in international red-ball cricket. At 30, he’s close to his peak and can still serve New Zealand cricket for a good five years.
After dealing with injuries throughout his career, Sears has finally hit an inflection point with his double five-wicket hauls that should see his name start getting longer mentions in opposition team meetings.
New Zealand also have Kyle Jamieson (6’8’’) and Henry Shipley (6’5’’) to go with O’Rourke (6’4’’) as three high-release, hit-the-deck bowlers who can get batters hopping even on dead surfaces. Jamieson, whose initiation to international cricket was as exciting as O’Rourke’s before he lost his way, has come back from injury with a slightly remodelled action that doesn’t seem to have reduced his effectiveness. Shipley has had a similar arc. A stress fracture ruled him out for a long period in 2023, but now he’s back bowling full throttle in domestic cricket.
Towering right-armers in their prime are not the only breed of fast bowlers New Zealand have, though. To provide variety and oomph, there are Ben Lister and Zakary Foulkes. Lister, a left-armer with a similar build as Mitchell McClenaghan, was described by Devon Conway as someone who “does different tricks with the ball” before his debut series in 2023, while Foulkes has shown enough promise to be fast-tracked into the national setup at 22.
Then there is the experienced duo of Adam Milne and Lockie Ferguson, who may be on rotating shifts with their franchise commitments but are still potent white-ball forces New Zealand go to when available. And to support all these frontline quicks, they also have a group of seam-bowling all-rounders coming through: Nathan Smith, who made his debut across formats last season; Josh Clarkson, who has played three ODIs and eight T20Is in the last two years; and Muhammad Abbas, a cricketer with Pakistani lineage who already has a fifty and two wickets from his three ODIs.
A lot of credit for New Zealand’s enviable stock of fast bowlers goes to their development pathway. Between 2019 and 2023, New Zealand A played 14 first-class matches, three of which were in India and two in Australia. Jamieson, Duffy, Smith, Lister, Sears, and O’Rourke all featured at least once in those games.
"I think New Zealand have benefitted with an A programme over the last five years," Shane Bond said four years back when Sears got his maiden international call up. "The 21-year-old Ben Sears is going to look very different to the 27-year-old Ben Sears and hopefully New Zealand will keep the production line going of world-class fast bowlers coming through and he'll be one of those in a few years' time.”
Bond clearly knew what he was talking about, both in terms of New Zealand’s production line of quicks, and Sears’ development into a world-class bowler by 27.
New Zealand’s flexible approach to contracts has also played a part in helping fringe players get more game time. Boult led the way by rejecting a central contract three years ago to pursue franchise commitments more freely. Other seniors like Kane Williamson, Ferguson, and Milne followed soon. It meant they would not be available for games that would clash with leagues they were playing, allowing selectors to pick younger players who could learn on the job.
Tom Latham described it perfectly last year after the central contracts were announced. “We've seen over many years now, at times we haven't had those senior guys. That gives me an opportunity as a senior player to step up and lead as well. But also other guys who haven't necessarily had opportunities in the past to step up in different leadership roles. It's never great when you miss guys of Kane's calibre, but it gives opportunities to other guys to put their best foot forward."
New Zealand’s fast bowlers have taken 648 wickets across formats in international cricket since 2023 – the most by any team. Southee, Boult, and Wagner have accounted for only 20.6 per cent of those. Eleven different quicks have taken more than 20 wickets – again, the most for any team. This doesn’t just suggest promise for the future, it suggests dominance in the present.
And it hasn’t happened by chance. It’s the result of a quietly brilliant system that New Zealand Cricket have built. One where gambling on talent isn’t a gamble at all, but almost a guarantee of success.
