By Nick Mulvenney
(Reuters) – Tim Southee, once half of the most feared new-ball partnership in the game, brought down the curtain on a glittering 16-year test career after New Zealand crushed England for a consolation win in Hamilton on Tuesday.
New Zealand’s all-time top wicket-taker with 776 victims across all formats, the 36-year-old retires as his country’s second highest in tests with 391 behind the great Richard Hadlee.
“Tim is a true champion, a great New Zealand cricketer and sports person,” Hadlee said in a ceremony after the match at Seddon Park on Tuesday to mark Southee’s 107th and final test.
“Tim’s skill-set were admirable,” he added. “The classical outswinger, the scrambled seam off-cutter are the feature of Tim’s successes.
“It would have been only fitting that Tim could have ended his career if he had reached the 400 test wicket mark. In my opinion, he deserved that.”
Many of Southee’s wickets came in the company of his strike partner for so many years Trent Boult, who retired earlier this year, and batter Brendon McCullum, who was on hand on Tuesday as coach of England.
It was against England at Napier in 2008 that Southee made his test debut as a teenager with a brilliant performance in a losing cause that marked him out as a special talent.
The then 19-year-old took five for 55 in England’s first innings and clubbed 77 from 40 balls with nine sixes and four boundaries in a defiant second knock.
His big tail-end batting was always a feature of his game, even if he did end up two shy of his target of 100 career test sixes after holing out for two runs in his final innings with the bat on Monday.
It is, though, with his tail up, a new ball in hand and conditions conducive to swing that he will be best remembered, with pleasure by New Zealand cricket fans but not perhaps so fondly by past opponents.
He helped New Zealand to the final of the 50-overs World Cups in both 2015 and 2019 and although they lost both, Southee did finally get his hands on a major trophy in the 2021 World Test Championship final.
He replaced Kane Williamson as test skipper in late 2022 and oversaw six wins, six losses and two draws in his 14 tests in charge until he hand over the captaincy to Tom Latham in October.
“He’s just an outstanding servant of the game and just a huge player for us over the years,” Williamson said on Monday.
“Not just on the field, those achievements are there for everybody to see, but his leadership and how he carried himself throughout his test career.
“It’s been a big part of why this team’s been in a pretty strong place for some time, and he’s been through all of that.”
That sort of regard ensured that, despite his diminishing returns as a bowler, Southee would get the swan song he wanted in the third test against England at his home ground, where he played provincial cricket for Northern Districts.
“This group of guys made the ride so much more enjoyable. I’ve loved every minute,” an emotional Southee said on Tuesday.
“Look forward to watching on as a fan, and all the best boys.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
