The tour of Australia was a forgettable outing for New Zealand’s Trent Boult, who has just been a sensation in the last couple of years. Boult has found tremendous success across all formats and he has been New Zealand’s best bowler in all the conditions. Boult was named the Man of the Match in the first T20I against Sri Lanka, where New Zealand narrowly won the game by 3 runs. Boult’s spell of 3-21 in 4 overs handed New Zealand the game.
As per bowling coach Dmitri Mascarenhas, Boult is near his 100% and back to his best after a poor Australia tour. “Trent had a tough time in Australia and since then – he’s a world class bowler and he knows what he needs to do to get back to his best, and he has done that,” he said. “He has overcome his injury, he has worked really hard and he’s reaping some really good rewards now, which is great to see,” said Mascarenhas.
Reflecting back on the thrilling game, Mascarenhas said, “It looked as though it could be getting away from us right at the end.” “They only needed 35 off 24 balls. In T20 standards that’s pretty easy, with the size of the boundaries and the size of the bats. But Mitchell McClenaghan and Trent Boult at the end were brilliant in their last couple of overs. And for Grant Elliott to finish off like he did was good.”
“As we saw with the Sri Lankans, they are going to come hard from start to finish and I think that is going to be the theme moving forward going into the World T20,” he said. “All the teams bat deep so we have to be aware that if you have a team five down they are not just going to roll over and die. We are going to have to fight really hard,” Mascarenhas concluded.