August 2, 2025 • 11 mins
The Black Caps have claimed the first test against Zimbabwe inside three days in Bulawayo and taken an unassailable 1-0 lead in the series.
After bowling their hosts out for 165 with the final ball of the afternoon session, New Zealand needed 14 deliveries to reel in their eight-run target for a nine-wicket victory and preserve their unbeaten record against Zimbabwe in test cricket.
Fresh from a haul of 6/39 in the first innings, Matt Henry added another 3/51 in the second for match figures of 9/90, as comfortably the standout player on either side.
Former Black Cap Dayle Hadlee joined Piney to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Matt Henry has become the undoubted spearhead of the black
Caps bowling attack. Edge is it taken? Yes it is.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It was a matter of time about the subtle adjustments
in the field, allowing your gun bowler, who's been fantastic
for twelve months to pick up the first and there
he goes again in all conditions. How good he is
at adapting and being fluid in his changes in his
lines and his lengths. And yet another reward gone. What
(00:45):
a bowling change from mit centner on the stroke of lunch.
Oh year, then edge on that is their bat. Yes,
there's two wickets in the over.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Let's give you a simple catch you off the helmet,
umpires giving it straight away, must have beaten the glove
and Henry picks up his five wickets. Really performance this morning,
the leader of this attack.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, the leader. Indeed, wicket after wicket after wicket, nine
for ninety Matt Henry and that most recent Test win
over Zimbabwe well inside three days, just the latest example
of his value to New Zealand, with hopefully a lot
more to come. He now has three hundred and thirty
one wickets for New Zealand across all formats. That has
him sixth on our all time list of international wicket
(01:33):
taking bowlers. Dale Hadley was an accomplished seam bowler himself,
taking seventy one wickets and twenty six Test matches for
New Zealand and three hundred and fifty one across a
first class career which spans seventeen years. Dale Hadley then
became a highly regarded and hugely respected coach both here
in New Zealand and overseas. He joins us now to
(01:54):
chat a bit about Matt Henry Dale. Thanks for your time.
Where did you first become aware of Matt Henry.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
I think my first contact with him was in his
very early teenage years when he was involved in can't
underage clinics.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Were you able to tell at that early age that
he might be something a bit special?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
No, not really, because I remember him as a young
teenager being like a newborn giraffe and these legs and
arms are going in all directions. He didn't have a
lot of control over his body at that stage. So
at that stage and the early teenagers, no, I wouldn't
have predicted it.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So what then happened in the early stages that allowed
him to go from, as you've so eloquently put it,
a bit of a giraffe, to first of all a
first class bowler, and then on towards an international one.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
I think, to be fair, he's one of these boys
who really dedicated to him improving theirself. He was very
respectful and attentive and had a great desire to learn
and get better. And he was a fellow who was
diligent in his preparation and was a very hard worker.
And over the years he's refined himself into becoming an
international great bowler.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
In terms of those refinements, Dale, where have you seen
that big improvements in his bowling, you know, in particular
in recent years.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
I think what he's done is that technically had a
few issues when he was very young, and I think
some of those issues may have led to a stress fracture,
but he's worked hard to overcome those. I think what's
happened is he's developed a pace where he can bowl
between the mid one thirties and the sort of the
lower one forties, which is very competitive internationally. But he's
(03:34):
a bowler who bowls a good length, and it's because
he hits the scene more often than not. It makes
him extremely.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Dangerous when you talk about those technical issues. Can you
just drill down into that for us? What was he
what was he doing which wasn't quite right and which
was causing problems with stress fractures, et cetera.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
So it's what bowling coaches call a backfoot drift. When
he takes off on his left foot is landing backfoot
landing drifted across towards the return crease. So it just
sort of got him slightly out of the line with
the hips and shoulders. But he's become very strong now
and he's rehab very well after stress fracture, and even
(04:13):
though it's not perfect, it's him.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Is something like that challenging to fix when a guy
might have been doing it that way for so.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Long, it's very difficult to fix. And there's a lot
of bowls around the world who do have a backfoot drift. Ideally,
you want all the feet lining up, backfoot, front foot,
folowtry stare all lining up, and that makes it takes
a lot of stress off the back. But Matt's a
strong person now and he has developed his own technique.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
How much variation have you seen him develop in his
bowling artillery.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
I think the things I've been really impressed with is
that he can swing the ball, he can bounce the ball,
but he's got a tremendous change of pace, and that
was evident in one of the previous games when you
only gave away with a low number of overs and
they're chasing seven off the last over. So he's really
improved tremendously out of those.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Sort of things with the red ball. Dal do you
see bowling more wicket taking deliveries now than he used
to or is he just better at building pressure that
leads to batsman playing a false stroke for example.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
I think he's so consistent now that he just doesn't
let the batman get away with loose balls, and I
think consistency will always bring success.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And his red bull bowling compared to his white ball bowling,
he's been equally effective recently across both. Can you just
tell us what you're seeing in terms of what he's
doing with the white ball now?
Speaker 5 (05:36):
I think with the white ball, I mean he can
make the most of the ball. It only swings for
a few over, so he can make the most of that.
But he hits the scene and I think that is important,
and he can vary his length. He controls his length excellently.
And I love the other fact that he can bowl
a decent bouncer too, which can really surprise people who
are on the front foot.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He doesn't really have that sort of that nasty, fasty
persona either, from the looks of it. Does he. I
very rarely see him sledge a batsman or anything like that.
He just kind of he seems like he just gets
on with it.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Is that what you're That's exactly right. He smiles a lot,
and I think that's a great thing for Bowl of
the Zoo, Rather than getting angry and that when you
get angry, get tense and you start following short, he
smiled and relaxes his body and he's under control.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Maybe others could take a lesson from that. We know
how difficult it was for him to get in the
team in the early part of his career, with the
likes of Tim Sowdy, Trent Bolt, Neil Wagner and then
latterly Kyle Jamison blocking his way. How challenging would it
have been for him to be patient during that part
of his career.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
I think it must have been very difficult, but he
never he never gave that impression. It was a bit
of a shame really, because that's Tim Salvey were winding
down his career. Matt was sitting there poised and once
he came in he really made his mark very strongly.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Might the fact that he didn't play a huge amount
of Test cricket early on actually be to his advantage
in some ways now that he hasn't had a huge
workload over his career, that he might have played a
lot more tests earlier on.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
No, I'm not sure about that. The thing is he's
played a lot of cricket because he's playing in county
cricket there for a while and made a massive impression there.
He's played an awful lot of games. I was just
looking through his record and cause she's got in first
class crew, he played one hundred and eleven games and
this day is one hundred and seventy four games and
t twenty one hundred and sixty six games. I mean,
he's played an awful lot of cricket. But I think
(07:28):
he is matured and he's refined to skills. So when
he's come in, he's hit the mark pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
And he's now taking up a leadership role over the
next wave of New Zealand pace ballers coming through. I'll
be interested in your assessment of that dale the likes
of Willow Rourke, Zach Folks, Ben Sears, Nathan Smith, Matt Fisher,
who we haven't seen a heck of a lot of,
along with the likes of Carl Jamison and Jacob Duffy
who have been there a little bit longer. How do
you assess where we are paceballing wise at the moment.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I think we've got some very good pacet ballers. They're
fairly raw and it's going to take some time for
them to refine themselves. But I think having Matt Henry
and the team is from end us at communicating and
sharing knowledge and asking questions. So I think he's going
to have a major role to play in the future
of a young quickiest Is there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
A time which is a sweet spot for a seam
bowler and age where a fast bowler should be at
the peak of their pals.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
I would say sort of mid twenties to early thirties
of the crunch years. You get some people come in
and they make a mark very early, but quite often
they can't sustain it. That you once you've developed your
bowling body and you've got your fitness and backgrounds and
your strength and conditioning, that I would say twenty five
to the yearly thirties, and.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Then of course they have the challenge of, you know,
changing things when they lose may maybe you know, five
or ten kilometers of pace, and they have to rely
on other things like guile, like line and length, as
your brother Sir Richard did so effectively at the back
end of his career. Of course, you know, is that
something that that you know, fast bowlers find it difficult
to adjust to the fact that they're just not as
(09:05):
quick as they used to be and have to find
other ways.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
That's right. The pace alone does not bring success. And
then you can bowl one hundred and fifty k's and
if you're not accurate, you're going to get killed. So
I think people that over time they refine their techniques,
they refine their skills, and they compensate for the fact
they can't boil as cricket they used to.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
And just to finish, Darale love me. How do you
feel now when you watch Matt Henry and you the
way you outlined them before, the very raw young teenage
bowler who you first came across, and you watch them
doing what he's doing. Now, what how do you feel
when you say made he's actually he's actually made it.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
The great deal of pride in what he is achieving
is that it couldn't have happened to a better guy.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Darl It's great to get your insight. Thanks so much
for joining us this afternoon. Thanks Jason, Thanks Dale Helly.
They're one of our best ever cricket coaches. A very
keen eye on Dale Hadley and yes, so interesting to
hear the early recollections of Matt Henry. What are you saying,
newborn giraffe? It's probably not rare. I think a lot
a lot of young fast bowlers kind of just run in,
(10:11):
don't they, and just try and bowl as quick as
they can without thinking too much about how they look
or technically what they're doing. And then when they do
come under the tutelage and the guidance of a you know,
a bowling coach like Dale Hadley and others, then I think,
you know, it must be it must be so cool
for a guy like Dale Hadley and anyone else who's
(10:31):
involved in coaching bowlers. To be able to refine a
guy like that must be different from when you coach
a better You know, again, you know a lot of
batters are you know, they're coming and they've got their
they've got their wheelhouse where they like to hit, and
you can maybe refine them. But when you are able
to watch and just you could hear the pride in
(10:52):
the voice of Dale Hadley at the end there, you know,
he looks at Matt Henry now and thinks back to
what Matt Henry was like a couple of decades ago,
maybe not that quite that long ago, but when he
was sort of eighteen nineteen, and it must feel you
with pride to see that the coaching you gave him,
and the little tweaks you made to help him, and
(11:13):
the things that you suggested to him have all now
led to Matt Henry being one of the best international
bowlers going around, not just in New Zealand but around
the world.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talks at b weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Matt Henry has become the undoubted spearhead of the black
Caps bowling attack. Edge is it taken? Yes it is.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It was a matter of time about the subtle adjustments
in the field, allowing your gun bowler, who's been fantastic
for twelve months to pick up the first and there
he goes again in all conditions. How good he is
at adapting and being fluid in his changes in his
lines and his lengths. And yet another reward gone. What
(00:45):
a bowling change from mit centner on the stroke of lunch.
Oh year, then edge on that is their bat. Yes,
there's two wickets in the over.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Let's give you a simple catch you off the helmet,
umpires giving it straight away, must have beaten the glove
and Henry picks up his five wickets. Really performance this morning,
the leader of this attack.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, the leader. Indeed, wicket after wicket after wicket, nine
for ninety Matt Henry and that most recent Test win
over Zimbabwe well inside three days, just the latest example
of his value to New Zealand, with hopefully a lot
more to come. He now has three hundred and thirty
one wickets for New Zealand across all formats. That has
him sixth on our all time list of international wicket
(01:33):
taking bowlers. Dale Hadley was an accomplished seam bowler himself,
taking seventy one wickets and twenty six Test matches for
New Zealand and three hundred and fifty one across a
first class career which spans seventeen years. Dale Hadley then
became a highly regarded and hugely respected coach both here
in New Zealand and overseas. He joins us now to
(01:54):
chat a bit about Matt Henry Dale. Thanks for your time.
Where did you first become aware of Matt Henry.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
I think my first contact with him was in his
very early teenage years when he was involved in can't
underage clinics.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Were you able to tell at that early age that
he might be something a bit special?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
No, not really, because I remember him as a young
teenager being like a newborn giraffe and these legs and
arms are going in all directions. He didn't have a
lot of control over his body at that stage. So
at that stage and the early teenagers, no, I wouldn't
have predicted it.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So what then happened in the early stages that allowed
him to go from, as you've so eloquently put it,
a bit of a giraffe, to first of all a
first class bowler, and then on towards an international one.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
I think, to be fair, he's one of these boys
who really dedicated to him improving theirself. He was very
respectful and attentive and had a great desire to learn
and get better. And he was a fellow who was
diligent in his preparation and was a very hard worker.
And over the years he's refined himself into becoming an
international great bowler.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
In terms of those refinements, Dale, where have you seen
that big improvements in his bowling, you know, in particular
in recent years.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
I think what he's done is that technically had a
few issues when he was very young, and I think
some of those issues may have led to a stress fracture,
but he's worked hard to overcome those. I think what's
happened is he's developed a pace where he can bowl
between the mid one thirties and the sort of the
lower one forties, which is very competitive internationally. But he's
(03:34):
a bowler who bowls a good length, and it's because
he hits the scene more often than not. It makes
him extremely.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Dangerous when you talk about those technical issues. Can you
just drill down into that for us? What was he
what was he doing which wasn't quite right and which
was causing problems with stress fractures, et cetera.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
So it's what bowling coaches call a backfoot drift. When
he takes off on his left foot is landing backfoot
landing drifted across towards the return crease. So it just
sort of got him slightly out of the line with
the hips and shoulders. But he's become very strong now
and he's rehab very well after stress fracture, and even
(04:13):
though it's not perfect, it's him.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Is something like that challenging to fix when a guy
might have been doing it that way for so.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
Long, it's very difficult to fix. And there's a lot
of bowls around the world who do have a backfoot drift. Ideally,
you want all the feet lining up, backfoot, front foot,
folowtry stare all lining up, and that makes it takes
a lot of stress off the back. But Matt's a
strong person now and he has developed his own technique.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
How much variation have you seen him develop in his
bowling artillery.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
I think the things I've been really impressed with is
that he can swing the ball, he can bounce the ball,
but he's got a tremendous change of pace, and that
was evident in one of the previous games when you
only gave away with a low number of overs and
they're chasing seven off the last over. So he's really
improved tremendously out of those.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Sort of things with the red ball. Dal do you
see bowling more wicket taking deliveries now than he used
to or is he just better at building pressure that
leads to batsman playing a false stroke for example.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
I think he's so consistent now that he just doesn't
let the batman get away with loose balls, and I
think consistency will always bring success.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And his red bull bowling compared to his white ball bowling,
he's been equally effective recently across both. Can you just
tell us what you're seeing in terms of what he's
doing with the white ball now?
Speaker 5 (05:36):
I think with the white ball, I mean he can
make the most of the ball. It only swings for
a few over, so he can make the most of that.
But he hits the scene and I think that is important,
and he can vary his length. He controls his length excellently.
And I love the other fact that he can bowl
a decent bouncer too, which can really surprise people who
are on the front foot.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
He doesn't really have that sort of that nasty, fasty
persona either, from the looks of it. Does he. I
very rarely see him sledge a batsman or anything like that.
He just kind of he seems like he just gets
on with it.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Is that what you're That's exactly right. He smiles a lot,
and I think that's a great thing for Bowl of
the Zoo, Rather than getting angry and that when you
get angry, get tense and you start following short, he
smiled and relaxes his body and he's under control.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Maybe others could take a lesson from that. We know
how difficult it was for him to get in the
team in the early part of his career, with the
likes of Tim Sowdy, Trent Bolt, Neil Wagner and then
latterly Kyle Jamison blocking his way. How challenging would it
have been for him to be patient during that part
of his career.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
I think it must have been very difficult, but he
never he never gave that impression. It was a bit
of a shame really, because that's Tim Salvey were winding
down his career. Matt was sitting there poised and once
he came in he really made his mark very strongly.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Might the fact that he didn't play a huge amount
of Test cricket early on actually be to his advantage
in some ways now that he hasn't had a huge
workload over his career, that he might have played a
lot more tests earlier on.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
No, I'm not sure about that. The thing is he's
played a lot of cricket because he's playing in county
cricket there for a while and made a massive impression there.
He's played an awful lot of games. I was just
looking through his record and cause she's got in first
class crew, he played one hundred and eleven games and
this day is one hundred and seventy four games and
t twenty one hundred and sixty six games. I mean,
he's played an awful lot of cricket. But I think
(07:28):
he is matured and he's refined to skills. So when
he's come in, he's hit the mark pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
And he's now taking up a leadership role over the
next wave of New Zealand pace ballers coming through. I'll
be interested in your assessment of that dale the likes
of Willow Rourke, Zach Folks, Ben Sears, Nathan Smith, Matt Fisher,
who we haven't seen a heck of a lot of,
along with the likes of Carl Jamison and Jacob Duffy
who have been there a little bit longer. How do
you assess where we are paceballing wise at the moment.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I think we've got some very good pacet ballers. They're
fairly raw and it's going to take some time for
them to refine themselves. But I think having Matt Henry
and the team is from end us at communicating and
sharing knowledge and asking questions. So I think he's going
to have a major role to play in the future
of a young quickiest Is there.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
A time which is a sweet spot for a seam
bowler and age where a fast bowler should be at
the peak of their pals.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
I would say sort of mid twenties to early thirties
of the crunch years. You get some people come in
and they make a mark very early, but quite often
they can't sustain it. That you once you've developed your
bowling body and you've got your fitness and backgrounds and
your strength and conditioning, that I would say twenty five
to the yearly thirties, and.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Then of course they have the challenge of, you know,
changing things when they lose may maybe you know, five
or ten kilometers of pace, and they have to rely
on other things like guile, like line and length, as
your brother Sir Richard did so effectively at the back
end of his career. Of course, you know, is that
something that that you know, fast bowlers find it difficult
to adjust to the fact that they're just not as
(09:05):
quick as they used to be and have to find
other ways.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
That's right. The pace alone does not bring success. And
then you can bowl one hundred and fifty k's and
if you're not accurate, you're going to get killed. So
I think people that over time they refine their techniques,
they refine their skills, and they compensate for the fact
they can't boil as cricket they used to.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
And just to finish, Darale love me. How do you
feel now when you watch Matt Henry and you the
way you outlined them before, the very raw young teenage
bowler who you first came across, and you watch them
doing what he's doing. Now, what how do you feel
when you say made he's actually he's actually made it.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
The great deal of pride in what he is achieving
is that it couldn't have happened to a better guy.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Darl It's great to get your insight. Thanks so much
for joining us this afternoon. Thanks Jason, Thanks Dale Helly.
They're one of our best ever cricket coaches. A very
keen eye on Dale Hadley and yes, so interesting to
hear the early recollections of Matt Henry. What are you saying,
newborn giraffe? It's probably not rare. I think a lot
a lot of young fast bowlers kind of just run in,
(10:11):
don't they, and just try and bowl as quick as
they can without thinking too much about how they look
or technically what they're doing. And then when they do
come under the tutelage and the guidance of a you know,
a bowling coach like Dale Hadley and others, then I think,
you know, it must be it must be so cool
for a guy like Dale Hadley and anyone else who's
(10:31):
involved in coaching bowlers. To be able to refine a
guy like that must be different from when you coach
a better You know, again, you know a lot of
batters are you know, they're coming and they've got their
they've got their wheelhouse where they like to hit, and
you can maybe refine them. But when you are able
to watch and just you could hear the pride in
(10:52):
the voice of Dale Hadley at the end there, you know,
he looks at Matt Henry now and thinks back to
what Matt Henry was like a couple of decades ago,
maybe not that quite that long ago, but when he
was sort of eighteen nineteen, and it must feel you
with pride to see that the coaching you gave him,
and the little tweaks you made to help him, and
(11:13):
the things that you suggested to him have all now
led to Matt Henry being one of the best international
bowlers going around, not just in New Zealand but around
the world.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talks at b weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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