Even if Steve Finn never plays another game for England, he’ll have had an international career to look back on with pride.

Now 31 and not having played for England since 2017, Finn, a seam bowler capable of hitting 90 miles an hour, holds the record for the youngest England men’s player to reach 50 Test wickets and was a member of three Ashes-winning squads.

Potent, and at his best lethal, with the ball, the same could rarely be said of his batting in England whites. In 47 innings in Test cricket, Finn passed 25 just once and almost exclusively batted at either No. 10 or 11. It so happens that the one time he put in a performance of note with the bat, it was actually a match-saving half-century from No. 3.

In the first Test of a series against New Zealand that would ultimately be drawn 0-0, England were up against it after being skittled for 167 on the second morning after the first day was washed out. Neil Wagner, New Zealand’s player of the series on home soil against England six years later, shared eight wickets with Bruce Martin, who took career-best figures of 4-43 on debut.

It was another debutant who put England further trouble in the game’s second innings. Hamish Rutherford scored 171 opening the batting for New Zealand as they piled on 460-9 in response to England’s meagre first innings effort, giving the hosts a more than healthy 293-run lead; in 28 further knocks in Test cricket, Rutherford never again scored a century.

With almost two days left in the game, England faced an uphill battle to escape with a draw. Fortunately for England, their second innings started markedly better than their first. Nick Compton and Alastair Cook both scored hundreds as they put on 231 for the first wicket, England’s second-highest opening partnership this century. But when Cook was dismissed late on the fourth evening, England still trailed New Zealand by 62. Collapse like they did in the first innings and New Zealand could quite feasibly have forced through a win on the final day.

Enter, Steven Finn. Finn, who at the time averaged a fraction above 10 with the bat in Test cricket and had yet to pass 20, was asked to fulfil the role of nightwatchman. And fulfil it he did. Finn batted for the best part of six hours as he registered a career-best 56 that eradicated New Zealand’s hopes of victory.

In his 67.5-overs stay at the crease, Finn batted alongside Compton, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell, with only the latter outlasting the Middlesex seamer. Unfortunately for Finn, the innings turned out to be an unexpected peak rather than the start of something more long-lasting with the bat. He scored 24 in the following Test against the same opposition but followed that up with scores of 0, 0, 4, 6, 6, 0 and 2* across the rest of 2013.

“All I know is there will be a few cases of wine being sent to my house back in England,” said Finn at the end of the game. “I think it was a case of wine from Cook and a case from Jimmy if I saw it through to lunch, and then tea. So I’ve got four cases of wine coming my way, I think.

“I remember watching Glenn McGrath and he was riding his bat like a pony,” said Finn on reaching fifty. “I thought to myself I wasn’t going to do that. I haven’t done it for years. So it was a bit alien holding the bat up, but good fun.”