Nathan Smith: Black Caps bowler recaps the second ODI against the West Indies, previews the final clash

The Black Caps have secured their eleventh straight home ODI series win. 

In a thrilling ending, they claimed victory over the West Indies in Napier by five wickets. 

There’s just one more game to go in the series, the Black Caps looking to sweep their opponents and keep the momentum rolling into their next series, beginning in early December.

Nathan Smith is a seam bowling all rounder for the Black Caps, and he caught up with D'Arcy to discuss his bowling and the game later today. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Waldgrave from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm going to get things underway right here, right now,
talking cricket with Nathan Smith. So the black Caps wrapped
up their eleventh consecutive home One Day International series with
a win on Wednesday and Napier the rain went away
stunning and it actually ended up being a wonderful evening's

(00:31):
cricket if you will are They won by five wickets.
There's one game to go in the series, looking for
a sweep this afternoon and keep that momentum rolling ahead
of the Test series. It's going to set itself off
on the second of December. So we're talking to arguably
the pick of the bowlers from that game on Wednesday,

(00:52):
Nathan Smith. A field day last time out. He picked
himself up before for get a Nathan May. You must
be stoked, bro.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, yeah, let's good. It's always nice to contribute and
take some wickets.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I feel like I've sort of been putting the ball
in the right areas you know, for a while. It's
just the wickets sort of haven't been coming. But so yeah,
it was nice to nice to take some wickets the
other night in McLean Park.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
The right areas plainly batsman specific, but for you personally
when you bowl, where are you all right? Areas? What
do you get the best performance out of?

Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah? Well, I think typically in the past of being
a new ball bowler and my ability to sort of
move the ball laterally in the air off the wicket's
sort of my strengths. But this sort of role on
the team, it requires me to come in with a
bit of energy through the middle and use my short
ball and try to get the ball to move, the
older ball to move. So that's sort of the role.
Got a couple to got a couple to have to
bounce the other night, which was nice. Yeah, that's sort

(01:49):
of what it's going to look like for me, I
think moving forward.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well, it's the adjustment between bowling with the old ball
and bolling with the new ball, which is where you
want to be the physical or more importantly mental adjustment.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I suppose just physically it's exact same. Mentally, I think
it's around making sure you're on from the first ball,
because you know it's obviously you know you don't get
looser as the balls I'm going to swing away. You're
not gonna You're not going to get away with that
lateral movement as much. You've got to be on the
money from from ball one, which I wasn't the other night.
I just was, you know, lucky I clawed it back
and you know, keep coming out a little bit like

(02:23):
a golf round, isn't it. You can sort of bow
you the first hole and still go on to shoot
a pretty good score. So you know, you just got
to keep coming back with that mindset and keep keep
your chatting to the skipper around what you're trying to
do at each given moment. But I think that you know,
when you're bowling through the middle, it's just about adjusting
because teams do look to sort of come come hard
before out, so it's just you know, you're sort of
trying to trying to adjust, and yeah, I suppose see

(02:47):
what change you can make the fields at any sort
of given moment.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Lovely, it's a better have the freedom to not worry
about runs conceded. You just attack, attack, attack, and then
it's okay from a captain's point of view, from a
coach's point of view, that they've cut your loose.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Nathan oh of course. Yeah, the freedom's always there, Yeah
for sure. Yeah, really well backed in this group, So
that's I think that's the biggest strength about the group
as well. You know, over run backs each other to
go out of there and do the skill, and there's
a lot of trust in this environment. So it's it's
a good environment to be a part of.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Tell us about the fast bowling dynamic because there are
so many of you quick seamers involved in the side
that now all joking for position. How does that work
within the team? Is the joy or that a jealousy.

Speaker 4 (03:29):
Maybe, Nathan, Oh, yeah, I don't know if there's don't
know if there's any jealousy floating around, but I think
you know, everyone wants to play right and there's there's
a lot of seamers, like you said, vying for four spots, So.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
I think that's that's kind of the external stuff. And
when whenever you get the opportunity, it's about committing to
what you do best and making sure you're giving yourself
the best chance to put in a performance and contribute
and hopefully be able to pull on the jumping next
week as well. So I think they are the most
important things that's about stripping it back to I guess
the here and now and what's your role at the moment,

(04:02):
And I think then if you do those things, that'll
put you in the best stead to put performance on
the board and contribute.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
The cool thing about the bulk of this attack and
team is that started playing international cricket later in their career.
So in essence, mentally you're in the right space to
deliver what you need to deliver. You're you're in the prime,
aren't you.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Certainly, Yeah, I think you know, having a bit of
a body of work in domestic cricket underneath me, you know,
a couple of stinths overseas as well, playing in different conditions,
I think those those sort of experiences only help, certainly,
still learning though not to say that I know everything now.
I'm still only twenty seven and I think, you know,
my best years are ahead of me. So but I

(04:47):
certainly think, you know, experiencing both into a lot of
different batterers and a lot of different conditions sort of
from the ages of seventeen to what was I twenty
six on my debut last year, I think they that
has only helped. However, that's everyone's journey is different. You know,
people like young young dudes come on and then they
can set the water light from the get go. So

(05:07):
I think that's just my sort of experience with it,
but I think, yeah, it certainly helped.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
One of the definitive parts of playing cricket at whatever level,
right right away from club to international level. You've got
to sit around and deal with the rain when it arrives.
How do you cope with that?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, it's funny. We were sitting we were literally sitting
at a cafe having a coffee. I didn't even know
what time it was, and we got a text and
it said the toss was in half an hour from
when we were and we hadn't even gone back to
the hotel to get our kit ready. So you know
what I mean, Like, you've got to be you've got
to be ready to go at any sort of moment.
We got to the ground, the ankle brace went on,
the kit went on, and then we walked out, we

(05:47):
warmed up and we had a toss and it was
like and then it rained the game. But it was like,
you know what I mean, it's like, you've got to
be ready to go. You're kind of always loosely thinking
about the game on those kind of days. So yeah,
it's funny you say that as cricket as you know,
we sort of it's just a part of it, you know.
It's like a it's just always there. It's always in

(06:07):
the back of your mind, but you've always got to
be ready to go.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
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