WTC final | Even police officers are stopping to have a photo with the mace: Neil Wagner narrates trip back to New Zealand
World Test Championship-winning pacer Neil Wagner has given an insight into New Zealand's freakish trip back home, packed with elated fans, greeting customs officials and even police officers eager to click a picture with the famous Test mace.
The Kiwi contingent - sans their captain Kane Williamson and a few other players who stayed back in England for The Hundred - touched down in New Zealand on Saturday. They will now undergo a 14-day mandatory isolation period before uniting with their families.
Neil Wagner wistfully talked about how their celebrations have been affected by the COVID-19 protocols. He, however, added that the reactions of New Zealanders in England after seeing the mace, their greetings and proud faces, made up for everything in some ways.
Wagner was quoted as saying by stuff.co.nz:
"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."
The Kiwi pacer added:
"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."
Wagner himself played a crucial role in New Zealand's historic WTC campaign. The combative pacer picked up three crucial wickets as the Black Caps beat India by eight wickets in the final at Southampton. He accounted for 35 snares at an average of 22.97 in the WTC cycle.
We shared the mace around on the plane, BJ Watling will take care of it for the next 2 weeks: Neil Wagner
Neil Wagner also talked about how he and his teammates took turns with the WTC mace on the plane, before finally handing it to BJ Watling for the next two weeks. Wagner said:
"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."
Watling drew curtains on his 14-year-long international career following the WTC final, having represented his country in 108 matches across all formats. Neil Wagner waxed lyrical about him, saying Watling was the "heart and soul" of New Zealand cricket who'll be sorely missed. Wagner added:
"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 epitomizes 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."