He became the best finisher in the Super Smash, New Zealand’s domestic T20 competition. After injury sidelined Colin de Grandhomme from the entire 2020-21 home summer, Daryl filled in for him and suddenly found himself in New Zealand’s T20 World Cup squad.
Everything, however, goes according to England’s best-laid plans in the powerplay, in their defence of 166 in Abu Dhabi. Chris Woakes hits Test-match lines and lengths, taking out Guptill and captain Kane Williamson. He bowls a perfectly pitched outswinger and gets it to seam away, too, past Daryl’s outside edge. Daryl’s parents, who have flown into Abu Dhabi in the midst of a pandemic, to watch their son in action on the biggest stage, get twitchy in the stands.
Daryl gets twitchy as well. He knows he has been bumped to the top to take advantage of the field restrictions with his muscle, but the ball isn’t quite sliding onto the bat under lights. There isn’t as much dew as New Zealand expected.
Daryl keeps throwing his bat at the ball. He can’t middle anything. He swings so hard that he loses his shape. Mark Wood rushes him with his blistering pace and bounce. He searches for the reverse-sweep against Adil Rashid but the legspinner drags his length back and dangles a legbreak away from Daryl’s reach. Liam Livingstone, too, pins him down with his assortment of offbreaks and legbreaks. Daryl dawdles to a run-a-ball 28.
Guptill and Williamson are gone, but Conway is more fluent, in comparison, to Daryl, marrying timing with invention. But then Livingstone has him stumped as the asking rate soars past ten an over. Conway’s mother Sandy has her head in her hands. New Zealand are helpless. New Zealand fans are helpless.
Wood then thumps out a lifter. Daryl flaps a top-edge over the keeper’s head for six. The cameras pan out to the stands, where Daryl’s parents are as surprised as he is.
Neesham then tees off, smoking three sixes. The weight of the world is now not on Daryl’s shoulders. He breathes easy, composes himself, and starts to play to his strengths: clear his front leg, maintain a stable base, and whack the ball. The dew also sets in as Rashid loses his length and drags one down. Daryl unleashes a devil-may-care swipe and sends the ball over midwicket for six. He barely celebrates his fifty, but his parents can afford a smile.
Two balls later, though, Rashid wipes out the smiles in the New Zealand camp by having Neesham holing out with a wrong’un.
New Zealand need 20 off 12 balls. Woakes is back for his last over. The ball is neither swinging nor seaming now. So Woakes looks to go short and tuck up Daryl. He bowls a cutter into the pitch. Daryl sits deep in the crease, waits for it to arrive, and clobbers it over long-on and into New Zealand’s dug-out.
Woakes then ventures an on-pace short ball, but Daryl sizes it up too and launches it over midwicket and into the grass banks. The mighty strike has his mother breaking into a jig.
Glenn Phillips, Shane Bond, and Kyle Jamieson are all up on their feet, raising their hands in joy. Mind you, the trio was not part of the squad in 2019. Neesham and Williamson, however, don’t move from their seats and keep their poker faces on. They know what it’s like to lose by the “barest of margins” without even losing.
Daryl has messed with Woakes’ length and head after clearing the bigger boundaries in Abu Dhabi. Woakes ditches the short stuff for the yorker, but it comes out as a full-toss, which is swatted away to the boundary.
So, kids, that’s how the big daddy of the Super Smash beat the big daddies of white-ball cricket. Remember the name: Daryl Mitchell!
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
