He imagined himself as Tim Southee when he bowled in backyard cricket, and Kane Williamson or Ross Taylor when he batted. He then watched Matt Henry hurl bouncers at Steven Smith from the grass banks as a spectator at the Hagley Oval in 2016. Eight years on, he is set to step into the Hagley Oval as a Black Cap and share the stage with some of his heroes.
He can get the new ball to hoop around. He can get the old one to reverse-swing and skid off the pitch. He is also a capable batter down the order. Meet 26-year-old allrounder Nathan Smith.
Just two weeks after making his white-ball debut for the Black Caps, in Sri Lanka, Smith will likely feature in his first Test with World Test Championship (WTC) points at stake. He was handed his first NZC central contract in September, even before he had played an international game for New Zealand. Although that owed something to Devon Conway and Finn Allen opting out of contracts, it highlighted the all-format promise that Smith brings and the faith New Zealand’s team management have in his skills.
The road to the New Zealand Test side, though, has been a long and twisty one for Smith. Hailing from small-town Oamaru, Smith had made his first-class debut in April 2016 as an 18-year-old and spent his formative years under Rob Walter, currently South Africa’s white-ball coach, at Otago before a reshuffle of personnel prompted him to move to Wellington ahead of the 2021-22 domestic season.
Smith immediately impressed in his first Plunket Shield season for Wellington, coming away as the joint-highest wicket-taker. A serious back injury, which needed surgery, then left him on the sidelines next season, but he bounced back spectacularly in 2023-24, his chart-topping 33 wickets central to Wellington’s run to the title.
A fitter, stronger Smith is now prepared to withstand the load of international cricket.
“Yeah, I suppose the last couple of years, barring the last six months, the 18 months before that, they were challenging,” Smith said recently. “A couple of back stress fractures, it’s quite testing times, but I think through that you sort of learn a lot about yourself. It gives you a little bit of perspective as well and it’s a hell of a lot better playing than spending a lot of time sitting on the couch watching.
“So, it’s nice to have a sort of a prolonged period of playing consistently and I think that’s probably why the results are so good, you know, just playing all the time.”
“Knowing Nathan, he’ll probably try and shift that mindset around to say that it’s going to create opportunities for him and that he’ll back his skills and know that if he does it really well, he’ll have a chance”
Alan Richardson on Smith coming under attack from England
Smith 2.0 added an extra yard of pace to his bowling, something that was recently on display in Sri Lanka, and also demonstrated that he can also operate with the old ball.
“He’s certainly increased that [his pace],” Shane Jurgensen, the current Wellington head coach and former New Zealand bowling coach, said. “I think it’s something he’s been working on the last 12 months is attacking the crease. Almost like taking himself out of the role of always being seen as maybe a swing bowler into potentially being able to bowl in all different types, not just new ball. That’s certainly something he and I have spoken about.
“He has a strong desire to being able to bowl in all parts of the innings. I think for us in the Plunket Shield last year there were certainly times where he upped the ante and bowled short deliveries, short-ball plans to try and create a bit of doubt with the batter. He certainly had an impact.”
Smith’s progress was closely monitored by not just Gary Stead and co. but also by those outside of New Zealand. Smith had popped up on Worcestershire’s county radar even before he topped the 2023-24 Plunket Shield bowling charts and glowing appraisals from the likes of Stead, Jurgensen and Michael Bracewell, Smith’s Wellington team-mate who has also played for Worcestershire, only convinced the county it was worth signing him.
In his first professional stint outside of New Zealand, Smith emerged as Worcestershire’s joint-highest County Championship wicket-taker, with 27 strikes in seven matches at an average of 21.14. Besides swinging the new ball both ways, Smith showed his old-ball chops and bested some top English batters, including Ollie Pope and Ben Duckett, to signal his readiness for Test cricket.
Alan Richardson, the Worcestershire coach, recalled one particular old-ball spell against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, where he ran through their line-up after Worcestershire had conceded a first-innings lead.
“Nathan had bowled well in the first innings against Notts and in the second on an abrasive surface, he got the ball to reverse-swing,” Richardson told ESPNcricinfo. “I think he got four for none in seven balls, which included Ben Duckett, it included Joe Clarke as well. And he bowled beautifully. He bowled with really good pace, but he got the old ball to move off the straight, which was really impactful. And he completely changed the nature of the game from Notts being slightly ahead of the game to now certainly us being in a nice position as well. Unfortunately it rained going into the last day.”
Jason Holder, the other professional at Worcestershire, also felt that Smith wasn’t too far away from playing Test cricket, according to Richardson.
“We were watching him. Obviously, it gets quite exciting,” Richardson said. “We’ve got Jason Holder, who’s our other overseas [player]he’s obviously a very, very experienced international cricketer, he’s captained his country. And he’s a really good thinking cricketer, knows his stuff. And straight away, he was like, yeah, ‘he’s going to be ready’.
“It felt like it was only going to be a matter of time. Nathan’s had that taste in white-ball cricket and hopefully he gets an opportunity in Test cricket as well. Because it would be nice to think that Worcester were a very, very small part of his journey towards that.”
Smith is certainly quicker than Colin de Grandhomme – he can touch 140kph – and though his batting isn’t as explosive as de Grandhomme’s yet, he is being talked up as a compelling package. In first-class cricket, Smith has scored 13 fifties and one hundred, while on his ODI debut, in Dambulla, he pulled off a sensational catch at the deep third boundary to dismiss Pathum Nissanka.
“He was batting probably at No. 7 the majority of the games for us and anywhere between No. 7 and No. 9, he did score some really useful runs,” Richardson said. “He knows his game well but [is] probably not as powerful as de Grandhomme. For me, all three skillsets – he ticks those boxes with the field as well. Awesome in the field, ultra-athletic, has the impact and has a real wow factor about him.”
Smith had a low-key ODI debut in Sri Lanka and facing Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes’ Bazballers will present a bigger challenge for him, but Richardson has backed him to cope well.
“I think I’ve only known Nathan for a small period of time, but he was a very impressive character and very calm,” Richardson said. “Knowing Nathan, I’d like to think he’ll probably try and shift that mindset around to say that it’s going to create opportunities for him and that he’ll back his skills and know that if he does it really well, he’ll have a chance at any given time that can go one way or the other. It will be quite intimidating because England will look to score at a [high] rate and he knows that.
“So, I’m sure he’ll have some things in place, but just watching how he goes about it, you know, he’s a very ambitious cricketer. It’s something that he put on his radar and speaking to us very early on, he wanted to play international cricket. I don’t think he will back down from that.”
From small-town Oamaru, Smith is certainly ready for the big stage.
