In Honour Of The All-Format Blackcaps Brigade
The demands on the modern cricketer are pretty hefty. Bouncing around the world from team to team, from format to format, from domestic to international, from red ball to white ball. Expected to smoothly transition between all of them and perform at a high level throughout. There are a chunk of Blackcaps right now playing in the IPL and as soon as that ends they’ll be travelling to England for the World Test Championship final. Some of them may even miss the first Test against England because of the tight scheduling. In a bloody pandemic, no less. Busy times.
The World Test Championship came about as a way to spice up the original form of the sport. Five day cricket, two innings apiece. Red ball and white clothing. It doesn’t get better than that. Yet T20s have found a beautiful niche themselves as tactics and strategies (and maybe most importantly: priorities) have developed to where the twenty over edition stands apart not as the hit-and-giggle of old but as a clearly defined and highly resourced legitimate style of cricket. Which in turn has threatened to squeeze ODI cricket out of the way and the Blackcaps’ recent summer schedules have put that threat in stark focus. Tied the World Cup final in July 2019 and they’ve only played seven One-Dayers since. Three against India, one against Australia (in that eerie pre-covid lockdown match), three against Bangladesh. Seven games in about 21 months and it’ll probably hit the two year mark before they play again – although the ODI Championship will force some hands eventually.
This ain’t to say that the demands are tougher than in the old days. Arguably they’re much less – dudes are well paid, the top women are making a living from the game these days too (although heaps of room for improvement there), and there are accessible opportunities for players all over the world. Compare that to the New Zealand cricket tour of England in 1949 back when it took about six weeks on a boat to get there and once they did they sure made it count with four Test matches and a further thirty-two first class games. In all they were away from home for more than six months.
Very different times. As much as John Reid would have been an incredible T20 player, he never got that chance... but players these days have the ability to specialise in one format or the other. They also have the ability to try and crack the national team in all three and that’s what this article is about. The blokes (and since the White Ferns haven’t played a Test match since 2004 we’ll keep it exclusively on a bloke focus) who have been capped in T20s, ODIs & Tests. All-Format Players, we shall dub them. Add that term to your cricketing dictionary.
There are a couple things I wanna learn from this exploration. First of all, who got there quickest, from first debut to third debut. That’s where this whole idea stemmed from: watching Devon Conway not even bother to dip his toes into international cricket before diving head first into the deep end. But he isn’t actually one of these folks. Didn’t play a Test in the summer – he was called up as batting cover but didn’t play. If, as is now expected, he debuts against England at the next opportunity then that’ll complete the set for him (double the rent and time to buying houses and hotels) in a swift 188 days... yet that isn’t even the quickest this summer, let alone ever, thanks to Will Young. More on that soon enough.
Also I wanna know which players survive the various culls if the benchmark is set at, say, 10 games in every format rather than just the one. There are players who don’t hit 10 in any format but have played all three so that’s a thing to peek at too. Goes without saying that there’s only bloke who has played 100 in every format – famously the only player in cricket history who can say that to date. Anyway, there’s your mission statement, now let’s get cracking.
All up there have been, as of the date of publishing, 280 men who have represented Aotearoa in Test Matches, exactly 200 in One Day Internationals, and 88 in T20 Internationals. How many crossover between all three of those lists? Sixty, that’s how many. From Andre Adams all the way through to Will Young. They award the caps based on alphabetical order by the way, hence Adams gets to be numero uno ahead of Chris Cairns who also played in the first ever T20 and who made his Test debut in the 1980s. And Will Young got to be ODI cap #200 ahead of Daryl Mitchell even though it would’ve been the other way around if it’d been batting order (alphabetical order is all goods... surprised the captain doesn’t get to trump it though – that way we’d be talking about Tom Lowry (Test), Bevan Congdon (ODI) & Stephen Fleming (T20) as #1’s).
Sixty names is actually more than you might expect given there have only been 88 capped T20 Blackcaps. That means close to three-quarters of them have been All-Format players – which is impressive given that the T20 team for quite a while there was used as a gateway into international cricket. And there are still a few folks who find themselves in that basket – including five chaps who have only played T20 internationals: Anaru Kitchen, Tom Bruce, Blair Tickner, Jacob Duffy & Finn Allen. Asterisks for the last two though, they only just got in there this summer so give them a chance. All five of them are still active domestic players in fact. Which means that all those guys with obscure T20 features over the years, they all played at least one other ODI or Test. Graeme Aldridge. Paul Hitchcock. Jeff Wilson. Ewen Thompson. Michael Bates. Ronnie Hira. Ben Wheeler. Brendon Diamanti. Luke Woodcock. Anton Devcich. Although only just... Diamanti and Thompson are ins some elite company having each played a single ODI & T20.
Here’s the complete list of All-Format Blackcaps, in order of when they completed the trilogy...
| # | Name | Date | # | Name | Date | # | Name | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andre Adams | 17/02/2005 | 21 | Daniel Vettori | 12/09/2007 | 41 | Colin Munro | 22/01/2013 |
| 2 | Chris Cairns | 17/02/2005 | 22 | Ross Taylor | 08/11/2007 | 42 | Trent Boult | 09/02/2013 |
| 3 | Stephen Fleming | 17/02/2005 | 23 | Mark Gillespie | 16/11/2007 | 43 | Hamish Rutherford | 06/03/2013 |
| 4 | Brendon McCullum | 17/02/2005 | 24 | Jamie How | 23/11/2007 | 44 | Corey Anderson | 09/10/2013 |
| 5 | Craig McMillan | 17/02/2005 | 25 | Daniel Flynn | 15/05/2008 | 45 | Tom Latham | 14/02/2014 |
| 6 | Hamish Marshall | 17/02/2005 | 26 | Gareth Hopkins | 05/06/2008 | 46 | Jimmy Neesham | 14/02/2014 |
| 7 | Kyle Mills | 17/02/2005 | 27 | Tim Southee | 15/06/2008 | 47 | Matt Henry | 21/05/2015 |
| 8 | Matthew Sinclair | 17/02/2005 | 28 | Jesse Ryder | 17/10/2008 | 48 | Luke Ronchi | 29/05/2015 |
| 9 | Scott Styris | 17/02/2005 | 29 | Ian Butler | 15/02/2009 | 49 | Ish Sodhi | 02/08/2015 |
| 10 | Daryl Tuffey | 17/02/2005 | 30 | Grant Elliott | 15/02/2009 | 50 | Mitchell Santner | 27/11/2015 |
| 11 | Nathan Astle | 21/10/2005 | 31 | Iain O'Brien | 15/02/2009 | 51 | Henry Nicholls | 26/03/2016 |
| 12 | Shane Bond | 21/10/2005 | 32 | Martin Guptill | 18/03/2009 | 52 | Colin de Grandhomme | 17/11/2016 |
| 13 | James Marshall | 21/10/2005 | 33 | Aaron Redmond | 03/10/2009 | 53 | Neil Broom | 16/03/2017 |
| 14 | Jacob Oram | 21/10/2005 | 34 | Peter Ingram | 15/02/2010 | 54 | Todd Astle | 20/12/2017 |
| 15 | James Franklin | 16/02/2006 | 35 | BJ Watling | 13/08/2010 | 55 | Lockie Ferguson | 12/12/2019 |
| 16 | Lou Vincent | 16/02/2006 | 36 | Andy McKay | 20/11/2010 | 56 | Hamish Bennett | 24/01/2020 |
| 17 | Peter Fulton | 09/03/2006 | 37 | Kane Williamson | 15/10/2011 | 57 | Tom Blundell | 05/02/2020 |
| 18 | Jeetan Patel | 27/04/2006 | 38 | Doug Bracewell | 20/10/2011 | 58 | Kyle Jamieson | 27/11/2020 |
| 19 | Michael Mason | 26/12/2006 | 39 | Dean Brownlie | 03/02/2012 | 59 | Daryl Mitchell | 20/03/2021 |
| 20 | Chris Martin | 12/09/2007 | 40 | Rob Nicol | 07/03/2012 | 60 | Will Young | 28/03/2021 |
The trickiest aspect of the trio is getting that Test cap. Those ones are handed out far more judiciously, gotta really earn them, plus there are just fewer Tests being played in general so that’s where a lot of players fell short. Also because of the different skill sets demanded between single-day and multi-day cricket you’ve got guys like Neil Wagner who has become a Test specialist, never played another version internationally which remains a bonkers fact. However the similarly pigeon-holed BJ Watling (pigeon-holed by choice at this point, fair enough) did begin his international career as an opening batsman in the shorter forms. He’s on that list with 73 Tests, 28 ODIs, 5 T20s. One of a handful of players there whose Test appearances were/are their most prominent: along with Chris Martin, Daniel Flynn, Ian Butler, Iain O’Brien, Doug Bracewell & Tom Blundell.
Once upon a time the Blackcaps hosted Australia in Christchurch in the first ever T20 international match, featuring beige kits and copious facial hair. That game also featured ten players who were all already capped in Test & ODI cricket... plus Jeff Wilson. Who never played a Test match unless you count the 60 rugby ones he played for the All Blacks. That makes some of this chat a little funky as only a couple of those dudes went on to have extended T20 careers. Overall it took a while before the concept of a T20 specialist emerged, probably why that ratio of All-Format players is as high as it is. But while being capped in three different versions of the game is a pretty bloody impressive achievement in and of itself, the honours do go further.
Here’s the list of players who’ve played at least 10 matches in every format:
Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Scott Styris, Shane Bond, Jacob Oram, Jeetan Patel, James Franklin, Peter Fulton, Ross Taylor, Daniel Vettori, Jesse Ryder, Tim Southee, Martin Guptill, Doug Bracewell, Kane Williamson, Colin de Grandhomme, Tom Latham, Corey Anderson, Jimmy Neesham, Trent Boult, Ish Sodhi & Mitchell Santner
Now here’s the list when that buffer is raised to 20 matches in each:
Brendon McCullum, Scott Styris, Jacob Oram, James Franklin, Ross Taylor, Daniel Vettori, Tim Southee, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson, Colin de Grandhomme, Trent Boult & Mitchell Santner
Wanna try 30 matches of each? Let’s go:
Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, James Franklin, Ross Taylor, Daniel Vettori, Tim Southee, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson & Trent Boult
And there are a mere four absolute heroes who have played 50 matches of each:
Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor, Tim Southee & Kane Williamson
Martin Guptill falls just short of that elusive club membership, he’s only played 47 Tests and is unlikely to ever add to that tally. He has, however, just tied Ross Taylor on 102 T20 internationals so there’s a kiwi record in the making with the next T20 that he plays. Rossco of course being the fella with 100/100/100 appearances. Not currently in the T20 squad and at his age that’ll be a tough one to break back into but he’s still first choice in Tests (as he hunts Daniel Vettori’s record of 113, Taylor is on 105 currently) and ODIs... when we ever play them. The lack of ODI cricket since the World Cup will probably cost Ross Taylor (233 caps) a shot at Vettori’s NZ record of 295 ODI matches even if he does play through to the next one. Still, he has broken Vettori’s overall record for matches for NZ. 440 against DV’s 437 (although Vettori played five other games for the ICC World XI).
Shout out to all those guys. But I came into this exploration wanting to know who the players were who merely scraped into All-Format status too. No shade, as we’ve established it’s a brilliant achievement just to play one game let alone to do so in three formats. You know what’s up though.
There were a few 1’s in the appearance lists of those sixty fellas. Andre Adams only played one Test. As did Michael Mason. As did Andy McKay. As did Colin Munro. As did Hamish Bennett. Lockie Ferguson as well but we’ll skip him because it’s unfair to chuck current squadies in there, with the exception of Bennett because his is a unique case. First played for the Blackcaps back in 2010 and he was a pretty excellent ODI bowler for a brief spell there but injuries wrecked his prime. However he recently came back into the fold to debut in T20s against India in early 2020 and has stuck around that squad since. He also played a lone Test match back in 2010 vs India in Ahmedabad which was the same Test in which Kane Williamson debuted... except Williamson scored a hundy while Bennett bowled 15 overs without a wicket before leaving the Test with a groin strain. Ferguson’s Test debut also saw him get injured without taking a wicket, coincidentally.
As for the others, they all had decent careers in other formats. Andy McKay played a World Cup semi-final. Andre Adams was a first choice ODI player for quite a while there. Colin Munro is second all-time for T20I hundreds (3 of them, one behind Rohit Sharma and tied with Glenn Maxwell). Michael Mason was a bit sketchier but he still took 31 ODI wickets from 26 matches.
There are guys like that who sorta sneak into the All-Format club but those situations aren’t too different to the original debutants whose careers only overlapped with T20s by a little bit. What we’re really after is guys who never hung around in any format for very long. So here are the lads with 10 or fewer caps in all three, but still at least one in all:
James Marshall – 7 Test | 10 ODI | 3 T20
Aaron Redmond – 8 Test | 6 ODI | 7 T20
Peter Ingram – 2 Test | 8 ODI | 3 T20
Todd Astle – 5 Test | 9 ODI | 4 T20
Tom Blundell – 10 Test | 2 ODI | 3 T20
Kyle Jamieson – 6 Test | 5 ODI | 8 T20
Will Young – 2 Test | 2 ODI | 3 T20
Now, safe to say that Tom Blundell will play more Test matches and relieve himself of this company. Absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Kyle Jamieson will get well beyond ten in all three of them. Will Young is a good chance to do the same though it’ll take him a lot longer given he’s not first choice in any variant. But he’ll hang around and he’ll get games.
Todd Astle is more of a talking point. 2012 was when he made his Test debut and he’s been there or thereabouts in so many squads since... but he hardly ever plays. Just took 4-for in his most recent T20 appearance and there’s a World T20 in India coming up so he’s a decent chance to make that squad, yet Santner and Sodhi dominate the spinning scene in limited overs formats and Astle’s retired from longer form cricket so bit of an awkward one for him. Then we’ve got James Marshall, Aaron Redmond, and Peter Ingram... and if you’re looking to award the tinniest All-Formatter then methinks there’s a standout candidate amongst the three. But credit where it’s due to Peter Ingram. His international career went about as far as his front foot whilst playing a cover drive yet he’s actually an All-Format record holder because check this out...
Quickest/Slowest to All-Format Status (Days from First Debut to Third Debut)
| Quickest | Days | Slowest | Days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peter Ingram | 13 | Chris Cairns | 5565 |
| 2 | Doug Bracewell | 18 | Stephen Fleming | 3989 |
| 3 | Hamish Rutherford | 26 | Nathan Astle | 3926 |
| 4 | Colin Munro | 42 | Daniel Vettori | 3871 |
| 5 | Martin Guptill | 68 | Hamish Bennett | 3390 |
| 6 | Henry Nicholls | 92 | Neil Broom | 2988 |
| 7 | Daniel Flynn | 99 | Craig McMillan | 2831 |
| 8 | Will Young | 116 | Ian Butler | 2560 |
| 9 | Tim Southee | 132 | Chris Martin | 2491 |
| 10 | Mitchell Santner | 172 | Scott Styris | 1932 |
| 11 | James Marshall | 238 | Matthew Sinclair | 1881 |
| 12 | Jeetan Patel | 240 | James Franklin | 1872 |
| 13 | Jesse Ryder | 256 | Todd Astle | 1852 |
| 14 | BJ Watling | 275 | Lou Vincent | 1837 |
| 15 | Andy McKay | 289 | Daryl Tuffey | 1785 |
| 16 | Corey Anderson | 293 | Kyle Mills | 1770 |
| 17 | Kyle Jamieson | 294 | Jacob Oram | 1752 |
| 18 | Mark Gillespie | 330 | Colin de Grandhomme | 1742 |
| 19 | Grant Elliott | 331 | Hamish Marshall | 1533 |
| 20 | Dean Brownlie | 405 | Iain O'Brien | 1439 |
That’s genuinely astounding. Devon Conway will come in at 188 days, just behind Mitchell Santner and ahead of James Marshall, if he debuts in the first Test in England. Which let’s be honest he will (especially if Kane Williamson’s unavailable). Will Young just gassed it past him having had to wait nearly two years from when he was initially going to make his Test debut – the March 2019 game vs Bangladesh which was cancelled after the terror attack in Christchurch – only to then scoop up caps in all three within a single summer. Yet there are still those who did so quicker.
Like Colin Munro, who went away on tour to South Africa uncapped in late 2012 and returned an All-Format player (albeit he never did play another Test... and he got a golden duck in the first innings).
Or Hamish Rutherford who was called up for every leg of England’s tour to Aotearoa in 2012-13 just a month or so after Colin Munro first got in the team. Rutherford’s ODI career only lasted four matches and less than a year and his T20 career wasn’t much longer (though it does include a random call-up to play in Sri Lanka in 2019 on the way back from Country cricket in England). But he stuck around at Test level for 16 matches on the back of 171 on debut – much sharper than his dad Ken who got a pair in his first Test.
Or Doug Bracewell who has taken at least 20 wickets in every format, only really dropping out of the Test team at all because injuries caught up with him. Bracewell was part of the tour to Zimbabwe in 2011 where he made a trio of debuts all within three weeks.
But nobody emerged quite as rapidly as Peter Ingram. A notorious run-plummetter in the domestic stuff, he got a go back in the days when there’d only be one T20 game at the start of a tour. Bangladesh were in town, the year was 2010, and he scored 20 not out in the Twenty20 in Hamilton on 3 February. Mostly just enjoying the sights while Brendon McCullum scored 56 off 27 balls as the Blackcaps won by 10 wickets after bowling Bangladesh out for 78. Ingram then played the ODI series which started two days later, scoring 69, 28 & 25 in the three matches. And then bugger it might as well give him a Test as well. That one began on 15 February making it a miniscule 13 days between being a domestic player and an All-Format international. Just THIRTEEN days! Unfortunately for him Australia were the next touring team to arrive later that very same month and suffice to say his career didn’t last much longer. He did get two more ODIs later in the year but that was it. Still, hell of a chapter in kiwi cricket, that one.
As for the other side of that table it’s full of guys from the first game, naturally. Which isn’t quite fair. Chris Cairns wasn’t hanging by the phone on team-naming days wondering why he wasn’t getting called up to the T20 squad in 1989 after his Test debut. The format didn’t exist. Lots of hombres played near complete careers before putting some T20 icing on the cake at the end. Curiously Dan Vettori took a couple years before he started playing T20s, he was cap #25 in that version. A few much more interesting stories from that list...
Hamish Bennett’s already been covered. Got injured on Test debut and never got another one, played a decent number of ODIs but only recently got back in for a T20. Top work from him. Neil Broom has a similar tale. It was in 2009 that he appeared in both limited overs formats and would end up scoring 899 ODI runs. He was actually the guy who was infamously given out bowled in Aussie when Brad Haddin knocked the bails off with his hands that time. He got back into the ODI team around 2016 when Ross Taylor was out for his eye surgery and scored his only international ton with 109no vs Bangladesh. Later that summer he’d deputise again for Ross Taylor for his Test debut in a game vs South Africa to complete the set more than eight years after it began.
Luke Ronchi doesn’t make the list with a difference of 729 days. He was ODI keeper for a decent while, and a bloody good one too. Kept at the 2015 World Cup. What he didn’t tend to make a habit of was playing Test matches, however he did get a game on tour to England in the wake of that World Cup where he scored 88 off 70 in his first knock. He’d also play three times in India in 2016 as a specialist batsman on account of how he could play spin bowling slightly better than most. Only played four Tests all up but he did score 319 runs at 39.87. His Blackcaps career lasted about five years in total... but remember he did play a few times for Aussie back in the day. If you count those games (which we won’t) then his AF status took 2535 days to complete which would have been top ten.
Hey here’s Todd Astle making another appearance. Test debut in 2012, T20 debut in 2016, ODI debut in 2017. There was a week short of four years between his first Test and second Test, then another year and a half before his third and eleven more months until number four and a further eleven until his fifth and final. Sure he’s been picked plenty in the meantime, but actual games of cricket have always been sparse for him so no can’t be too surprised to see him where he is on the list.
The other current player there is Colin de Grandhomme. That’s because CDG got into the limited overs teams in the 2011-12 summer for games against touring South Africa and Zimbabwe teams... but it’d be four and a half years before he got back into the team after that. In that second stint he not only made it stick but he also added a Test cap to his collection. With 6/41 on debut against Pakistan, he’s been a regular ever since (until his recent injuries).
Which is a trajectory familiar to Iain O’Brien, a guy who made his Test debut about a month after the first T20I (one of five men in the top twenty of that list who began their Blackcaps careers after the birth of Twenty20 internationals), yet cheeky series figures of 2/197 against Australia meant he had to wait another couple years for his subsequent chance. Once he got back in there he’d upped his pace and became a really valuable player for another twenty matches and it was during that second phase that he also picked up 10 ODI appearances and 4 T20s.
Gotta say also that there’s a level of All-Formatness which takes the cake and that’s when players are simultaneously playing all three. Not just having chipped away in the past before specialising but being a genuine selection in each at the same time. A full 28 players featured for the Blackcaps over the recent home summer. Lots of lads. Six of them played matches in all three versions: Daryl Mitchell, Ross Taylor, Kyle Jamieson, Will Young, Mitchell Santner & Trent Boult.
Ross Taylor’s since been dropped from T20s while Santner comes and goes from the Test side (he’s in the squad for the upcoming tour though). The others aren’t necessarily first XI in every format but they’re going to all be in most squads. As are two blokes who missed out only because of the lack of ODIs. Kane Williamson sat that series out but otherwise would have been captaining as he does in all forms. Tim Southee didn’t play an ODI but was in the squad carrying drinks. Plus chances are Devon Conway’s soon to join that group.
Which leaves us with one final question: Who’s next for the All-Format Brigade? I mean, Devon Conway obviously... but who after him?
There are a few candidates. Test matches are the toughest to crack and there are a couple active Test players who haven’t done the trilogy yet. Ajaz Patel is unlikely to get an ODI appearance to go with his Test and T20 ones (yes, Ajaz played T20s... a pair of them in the UAE in 2018 just before his first Test series). Glenn Phillips on the other hand only needs a One Dayer to his name and given his breakout T20 season that’s surely only a matter of time. It’s a shocker he hasn’t already had a go there, tbh. Phillips of course scored a 50 in his long Test appearance amidst that rotten 2019-20 tour of Australia.
Jacob Duffy also has Test match capabilities having been picked in the squad for the England/Test Championship tour and at 26 years of age he’s just coming into his peak. Tim Seifert, Scott Kuggeleijn, and Mark Chapman are each a Test away from getting amongst it. Chapman feels most likely of the three. Then there are the young guns of Rachin Ravindra and Finn Allen. Ravindra for sure is being prepped for All-Format cricket down the line.
There were three more fellas to join the club this past summer. There’ll be at least one more before next summer. All hail the All-Format Brigade.
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