When an alien greets you in the street and asks you why Mitchell Santner is a near-certain selection across all formats for Aotearoa, you may struggle to state a compelling case to the ol' mate. The alien won't know how Santner's delightful flight into a right-hander can make you feel warm in your loins, or how Santner strokes opposition bowlers like one of his three cats; the alien wants cold, hard facts.

And those facts would only leave ol' mate alien confused. Santner is in the Blackcaps ODI team for his ability to offer a stand-alone spin option and bat #7, effectively making Santner Aotearoa's numero tahi all-rounder. That means that Santner has out-lasted Corey Anderson and Jimmy Neesham in recent times, despite offering some ODI stats that would have any other all-rounder on the brink of being cut; 23.89avg/87.12sr and 32.90avg/4.91rpo.

It's not as though Santner is a blaster who smokes the ball to all parts down the order, nor has he snapped up opportunities to build innings' when the Blackcaps are in an awkward spot. Having made his debut in mid-2015, all three of Santner's 40+ scores came prior to March 2016 and since then he's put up a 30+ knock just once, which in all fairness was a 38*.

Santner hasn't really scored enough runs consistently to command his spot in the Blackcaps batting group and while rolling through fairly cheap overs in the days of 300+ scores (4.91rpo), Santner isn't exactly a genuine wicket-taking spinner who can be relied on for a pivotal breakthrough. In 43inns, Santner has taken 3+ wickets five times and that's less than the number of innings in which Santner hasn't taken a wicket (nine).

In Santner, we have perhaps the most mediocre consistent (selection-wise) international cricketer in the world. I don't mean that in an overly negative sense; Santner hasn't been amazing, he definitely hasn't been horrible, he's yet to suss an identity as a batsman and what he has done is bowl rather economically. Santner is a very poor man's Daniel Vettori.

That doesn't result in a compelling case for selection to the alien, or even your mate who you chat shit with. Many folk around Aotearoa will fall in the category of wondering what Santner's done to earn regular selection, while others are captivated by the dip of his bowling and the flourish in his drives. Chuck in a his fielding - which adds to a world class Blackcaps ODI fielding unit- and you've got 'yeah, he's just a cricketer mate'.

Incredible piece of fielding by Mitchell Santner in the 1st test match of the series against Sri Lanka on 14/12/2015.

Santner is that guy at any level of cricket who is gifted in the art of cricket. They make catches look easy, pull the fastest opposition bowlers for four and whether it's seam or spin, they actually have some stuff with the ball; they roll their arm over and get more revs/perfect seam, while your offies might as well be seamers. That's infatuating and Santner definitely passes all eye-tests, he just hasn't done much to suggest that he's a beast.

What Santner has done is that he's got better, exactly what you'd expect from those natural cricketers. In his first year of ODI cricket (2015, 8 games), Santner averaged 46.47 with 7 wickets (0.87w/game), then in 2016 Santner played 17 games and averaged 34.77 with 18w (1.05w/game) before playing 18 games with 26w in 18 games @ 26.38avg (1.44w/game) in 2017.

As Santner has bowled more against international batsmen, he's figured out how to be more effective and that sort of development is encouraging. If Santner can maintain an ODI bowling average in the mid-20s, as he did last year, then he'll be a locked-down selection as the main spinner and it would take something drastic for Santner to fall out of favour. Another year or two of averaging mid-20s will see Santner's career average likely drop below 30 and then we're looking at a slightly world-class tweaker who is entering their prime years as an athlete.

Weirdness comes in when we look at Santner's batting record over the last three years as Santner's batting has declined. I alluded to this earlier in saying that Santner's 40+ scores all came in the early portion of his career and he hasn't done much since; in 2015 he averaged 27, in 2016 he averaged 28.75 and in 2017 he averaged a glorious 19.55.

2017 however, also brought a Plunket Shield game in which Santner batted #4 for Northern Districts and hit knocks of 55 and 53 vs Auckland. Santner was ND's top-scorer in either innings, scoring more than BJ Watling and Kane Williamson as well as domestic run-scoring monster Tim Seifert. ND were dismissed for 148 and 238 with a stacked batting line up, on a pitch that offered plenty for the bowlers and it was Santner at #4 who was the mantis.

Put Santner's ODI batting up against his Test batting across those three years and it's a different story. Last year he averaged 30.57, in 2016 he averaged 21.22 and in 2015 he averaged 26; his Test batting has improved. That led me to a point where I pondered Santner's role in ODI cricket batting #7 or #8 and whether that is actually helping or hindering his progress as an ODI batsman.

While he's got T20 strike-rates of 124.13 (int - 13.50avg) and 127.20 (dom - 20.25avg), they haven't really helped Santner stack up any sort of runs in T20 cricket. Santner's main role in ODI cricket is to score quickly at the end of an innings and my gut-feeling is that Santner's batting is/will be better when he's got more overs to work with; accumulate, endure a good patch of bowling, hit bad balls and settle into an innings.

That means moving up the order, obviously things are fairly settled at the moment and there's no real openings. If the Tom Latham/Henry Nicholls combination doesn't work out, Santner wouldn't be a terrible option to see how it goes. Shit, you could even chuck Santner further up the order and experiment, that's if you want Santner to finally cash in on the promise of what he's shown with the bat though. Santner the lower order slugger hasn't resulted in anything, which is reinforced by why Santner has done in longer formats.

Again, Santner's spin is improving to the point where his batting could become a non-factor. The way his ODI spin is trending, there won't be any questions about what Santner's done to demand selection, yet that's somewhat limiting for a bloke who has shown his knack for this cricket thing with bat and ball. One day Santner might get a chance to play a role that actually suits his batting style, until then we'll continue to enjoy his improving spin and aesthetically pleasing cricket exploits.

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Peace and love 27.