BJ Watling To Take Care Of The Mace For Next 2 Weeks In Isolation - Neil Wagner Lavishes Praise On Retired Wicket-Keeper's 'Amazing Career'
Published - 26 Jun 2021, 07:23 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:48 AM
New Zealand seamer Neil Wagner revealed that wicketkeeper BJ Watling, who retired after the ICC WTC win over India, will “take care” of the mace they received for the next two weeks while everyone serves their quarantine period. The contingent arrived in New Zealand on Saturday and now will undergo 14-day mandatory isolation.
Kane Williamon’s side defeated the Asian giants by 8 wickets in the final at The Ageas Bowl in Southampton. They chased down the target of 139 runs in the last hour of play on Day 6, the Reserve Day.
BJ Watling had earlier announced that the England tour – two Tests versus Joe Root’s side and the WTC Final – would be his concluding Test matches. The 35-year-old retires as one of New Zealand’s best keeper-batsman having scored 3790 runs at 37.52 and over 250 dismissals.
“We shared the mace around on the plane and throughout the whole night while celebrating, everybody had their turn to carry it around and make full use of that. 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,” stuff.co.nz quoted Neil Wagner as saying.
“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,” he added.
It’s still hard to put into words, feels unreal: Neil Wagner
Neil Wagner talks about the reaction of the people around them to their victory in the inaugural ICC WTC. Though New Zealand were on the second position in the WTC table, they entered the final as the Number 1 ranked ICC Test team having beaten England in the series preceding the final. This is their first ICC trophy in 21 years; their previous and first one was the ICC Knockout Cup in 2000.
“It’s still hard to put into words, to be fair. It still feels unreal. Everything is socially 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,” the pacer further added.
