World champion Black Caps return to New Zealand with ICC mace
The triumphant Black Caps have arrived home with the spoils of victory, and BJ Watling has been handed the ultimate retirement gift.
Kane Williamson's world-beating side – minus their skipper and a few others – touched down in Auckland on Saturday morning, with a special outsized piece of luggage to load carefully onto the team bus.
The ICC mace, awarded to the Black Caps after they beat India in the World Test Championship final in Southampton on Thursday morning (NZ time), has made its way safely back to Kiwi soil as the team enter two weeks of isolation at The Sebel Auckland Manukau hotel.
And, speaking to media on a Zoom call on Saturday afternoon, Neil Wagner revealed it’s retiring wicketkeeper Watling who will have the honour of keeping the special silverware company in his room for the next 14 days.
“We shared the mace around on the plane and throughout the whole night while celebrating, everybody had their turn to carry it round and make full use of that,” Wagner said.
“And then on the plane, Ross [Taylor] got me to hand over the mace to BJ Watling, he’s going to take care of it for the next two weeks in isolation.
“I think it’s a fitting way for him to send his career off, it’s been an amazing career for us, the role he’s played for a number of years now, just the whole person he is and heart and soul of the team.
“He epitomises everything we are about as a team, the team-first attitude, being a guy that scraps and fights for everything, he’s led that all the way from the start. He’ll be sorely missed in this team.”
Wagner said the first photo Watling shared from his room had the mace safely tucked into his bed.
Talk is that once the team return to their families following their fortnight in MIQ each player will take the mace for a week or so.
When Wagner gets his chance, he wants to take it to his Papamoa Cricket Club, his local golf course and to the staff at Bay Oval who he noted had played a big part behind the scenes in his and the team’s success.
The 35-year-old left-arm seamer, who said this success had only urged him to work even harder on his game, admitted that, two days on, things were still sinking in after what also felt like “the longest chase ever” in the team’s pursuit of 139.
“It’s still hard to put into words, to be fair. It still feels unreal.”
That only accentuated on the journey home, where Wagner said the Black Caps felt “pretty amazing” love from staff at the airports, and Kiwis sharing their plane and lounges.
“Everything is social distanced, so you can’t even really shake their hands, and we had the mace, everyone wanted to take a photo, you can't even do that, or we couldn’t pass it on.
“It’s a bit of a shame but it’s part of the world we live in at the moment. It was quite nice to see some Kiwis walk past and see what it means to them, albeit in the distance waving away, and saying congratulations, it means a lot to all the boys.
“I don’t think I’ve ever walked into customs and got greeted the way we did. Everyone was just straight away [saying] congratulations, pretty happy, grabbed our passports and all they wanted to ask was, ‘Where’s the mace, where’s the mace?’
“Seeing even police officers stopping wanting to have a photo from a distance with it... it was nice to see the smiles on everyone’s faces.
“It sort of hit home pretty hard what it meant to people back here.”
Now, having already had the weird feeling of suddenly splitting from those players staying on in England, Wagner said it was going to be a further odd kind of time for the players to be in their own rooms for two weeks, perhaps not even seeing each other on their daily excursions.
“Coming off a high like this, you want to be around the lads and celebrate and obviously enjoy this moment,” he said. “It is a bit niggly, you’ve got to be stuck in your room, but those 14 days is what it is to keep the country safe.
“After that 14 days we’ll make the most of celebrating again.”
