After half a decade of struggle, perennial reserve Matt Henry proves his worth in whites

Heck, it could be argued that he was the best seamer in the world. In millennial slang, Henry woke up on the day of commencement of the County Championships and chose violence. Representing Kent in the second division, Henry took a mind-boggling 75 wickets in 11 matches, at an average of 15.48 and strike rate of 30.6, finishing atop the wicket-takers chart. He was not just unplayable, he was U-N-P-L-A-Y-A-B-L-E. The right-armer, who was no more than a New Zealand reserve, spit fire for Kent and helped the club secure promotion to the first division, with the southeastern county racking up more wins than any other team in the competition. 

The tragedy, though, lay in the fact that Henry, post his outrageous 2018 campaign with Kent, did not play a Test for the next 15 months. And when he finally played one, it was as a fifth-seamer behind Boult, Southee, Wagner and de Grandhomme in a low-stakes clash versus Bangladesh, post which he again went back to being the perennial water-boy. 

Henry also, apart from not yielding the desired returns, battled with injuries and saw himself compete with three of New Zealand’s greatest - Southee, Wagner and Boult - for a place in the first XI. Unsurprisingly he ended up on the losing side, and while still managing to be an integral part of the ODI set-up, saw himself be reduced to a water-boy in the longest format. 

And so when news broke out at the toss that Henry, in fact, would be spearheading the New Zealand attack at Edgbaston alongside Boult, there was a sigh of relief amongst English fans, and a cry of despair among the neutrals. Both for the same reason, of course. Deep down both parties knew that Henry simply was not going to trouble England the same way as Southee did at Lord’s. After all, prior to the start of Day 1, his bowling average of 51.54 was the worst among all New Zealand pacers in history to have taken a minimum of 25 wickets.  

What they were not prepared for, though, was the Matt Henry of Kent to turn up. And as soon as the second session began, England’s worst nightmare became reality: the Kiwi Henry got possessed by the spirit of the Kent Henry. 

The numbers won’t depict the importance of Henry’s burst immediately post lunch. 24 runs was what he leaked in the 6-over spell and it was, say, not as extravagant as the spell bowled by his partner, Boult, in the post-tea session. It was not an exhibition of swing bowling, nor was it a frenzy-inducing, pace-overflowing juicy passage that aroused the viewer. What it was, though, was mastery from the hand of a man who silently was keen to prove to the world that he has always been better than what his numbers suggest. And by the time he’d delivered the final ball of the spell, a rather awry bumper that Burns had evaded, Henry had successfully earned the respect of everyone who was watching. 

Yet Sibley’s wicket was just a prelude for what was about to come, as precisely 12 balls later, the right-armer ensured Joe Root, for the first time in two years, perished at home conditions without facing 25 balls. Beaten, beaten, beaten, beaten, OUT read Root’s innings summary and, within the snap of a finger, Henry had become the first pacer since Pat Cummins to conquer the England skipper in the embryonic stages of his innings. 

Henry is not as good as Cummins and he knows that. If he was, he’d have probably run through the English middle-order, and not gone wicketless post Root’s dismissal.  Yet he’s always also known that he was, and is, not as bad as his Test numbers suggest. And in that short burst post lunch, he showed precisely why.