The under-pressure gloveman was the fifth different Australian to win a player of the match award this Test summer
Alex Carey's player of the match award in Australia's thrilling three-wicket win over New Zealand was thoroughly deserved given his starring role with keeping gloves and then bat as he anchored his team's hefty run chase, but it underscored a deeper truth.
The triumph at Hagley Oval, where Carey and skipper Pat Cummins carried the team to their 279-run victory target with a breezy eighth-wicket stand of 61 from 64 balls, ensured Australia ended their seven-match Test summer with six wins.
And in the five of those games the player of the match gong has gone to an Australia player, all five have been picked up by different individuals.
In the first Test of the season in Perth it was Mitchell Marsh, then Cummins at the MCG as Australia secured a series win against Pakistan, Travis Head in the opening match against West Indies on his home patch, then Cameron Green and Carey in NZ.
It highlights a point both Carey and Cummins reinforced at game's end in Christchurch, that while the reigning World Test champions might not have fired on all cylinders very often throughout that stretch of seven Tests, there was always someone ready to take on the matchwinner's role.
Cummins conceded a defining trait of the two-Test Qantas Tour of NZ was perhaps not as many runs as his top-order batters would have liked, but they still scrapped and scraped enough to finish with a clean-sweep despite the Black Caps entering today's final phase eyeing a rare win.
"No doubt a few of them will look back and wish they had scored a few more runs over the last couple of games, but basically everyone in the line-up has won a match this summer," Cummins said in the wake of his team's last Test until next home summer's five-match campaign against India.
"At times we haven't played our best cricket, but still found a way to win.
"In a couple of previous summers, we'd blown teams out of the water, and this summer it wasn't the case but still at the key moments someone's stood up.
"It's similar to the ODI World Cup, you keep finding a way to win even if at times it's not fully functioning, the whole unit."
There was no more explicit or timely example of the 'someone always stands up' mantra than the just-completed Test where Australia were staring down the barrel of a first loss on NZ soil in more than 30 years at 4-34 chasing 279 last night.
Just as Josh Hazlewood had taken hold of the proceedings on day one with five wickets, then Marnus Labuschagne finding form to post an invaluable 90 before Cummins and Nathan Lyon extracted wickets against the odds yesterday, Carey stood tall under significant pressure.
The wicketkeeper-batter conceded he was disappointed with his dismissals in the first Test at Wellington and claims he slept badly after a rare dropped catch off Black Caps opener Tom Latham late on day two, but took the belief instilled in the dressing room out to the middle with Australia 5-80 this morning.
"I enjoy that challenge, I feel like this group's been able to get out of situations," Carey said tonight.
"I guess each guy's had a game where they've been able to do that, and so in the last seven games we've won six although at times a little bit under pressure – we've stayed resilient throughout that.
"We've got a really special bowling attack that's kept us in games and Mitchell Marsh's last 12 months, Travis Head, Steve Smith at the top of the order, (Usman) Khawaja … everyone's had their moments and it's a really special team to be playing in."
Carey cited the early stage of his pivotal 140-run partnership with Marsh after Head lost his wicket in the day's second over as the crucial factor in Australia's win, which lifts them above New Zealand and behind only India on the World Test Championship table.
He said despite the ball being almost 30 overs old at that stage, it was still moving noticeably off the seamer-friendly Hagley surface under heavy morning cloud, but he and Marsh were able to survive and still apply sufficient pressure back on the NZ bowlers by scoring freely.
The pair also made a decision not to overtly attack NZ off-spinner Glenn Phillips who had claimed five wickets in the second innings at Wellington, as well as Carey's wicket in his past two knocks, and rather wait for opportunities to come against the seamers.
That was a specific strategy from the Australia batters, with Cummins noting how he had felt as a bowling captain in the recent past when rival teams such as England had kept the scoreboard ticking over while whittling down a lead, which can raise anxiety levels among bowlers and fielders.
"We've been on the flip side of that a few times, and as a captain I know it's annoying when the other team is just ticking over the scoring rate," Cummins said.
"It's something we spoke about today, just keeping that scoreboard running."
Another key strength Australia took into their fourth-innings run chase, facing a near-identical target to the 281 they hauled in for the loss of eight wickets in the opening Ashes Test at Edgbaston last year, was the collective experience they boast in all manner of match circumstances.
On that celebrated occasion, it was Cummins and Lyon who got Australia home with the bat while today it was Carey who had posted just two scores above 50 in his previous 18 Test innings.
He might have finished with a second Test century today had Cummins not hit what proved the final ball of the match to the point boundary, from the final delivery of the 65th over with Carey undefeated on 98 and in line to face the next ball.
Carey claimed at match end he was delighted not to be tasked with scoring the winning runs, but the mid-pitch hug between the pair was almost as euphoric as Cummins and Lyon's symbolic embrace at Edgbaston which was one of those games that has fed the resolve and resilience in the Australia rooms.
"One of our biggest strengths is the experience we have, at least half the team have played 50 Test matches," Cummins said when asked if today's win increased the chances of the same XI taking the field for the start of next summer's Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.
"It's pretty hard to replicate, and I think in those key moments being able to draw on that knowledge, guys have played all around the world, it's valuable.
"I think you always look at your best eleven players and who you think is going to win the Test match, but we're in no rush to make rash changes."
Not surprisingly given the circumstances, he also threw his strong support behind Carey whose place in the team had come under scrutiny in some quarters given a string of low scores and the manner in which they were collected.
After his 10 catches at Christchurch, which equalled Adam Gilchrist's benchmark for most dismissals by an Australia 'keeper in a Test match, Carey has 133 dismissals (121 catches, 12 stumpings) from his 32-match career to date.
That's also equal to Gilchrist's tally (123 catches, 10 stumpings) at the same stage of his storied career with only Carey's Australia keeping predecessor Tim Paine (134) and South Africa's Quinton de Kock (136) boasting a better record after 32 matches across 147 years of Test cricket.
"I think his glovework has been basically flawless since he started, and that's pretty much your main role as keeper in the side," Cummins said of the man who has worn the gloves in every Test since the current captain took over the role in 2021.
"We’ve seen it over many years in ODI cricket, in state cricket recently and some key Test innings that 'Kez' (Carey) is well and truly a matchwinner with his batting as well.
"A 98 in an away series, when scoring runs away is always harder than at home.
"It's another nod to the special career that Kez is carving out for himself."
The under-pressure gloveman was the fifth different Australian to win a player of the match award…
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