After finishing as the leading wicket-taker in Somerset's T20 Blast championship, Matt Henry slotted straight back into County cricket with 8 wickets against Northamptonshire. Henry snared 3w @ 2.5rpo in the first innings followed by 5w @ 4.2rpo for a dominant Somerset win and Henry now has 26w @ 16.84avg/2.95rpo in County Championship Division one.

15 bowlers have taken more wickets than Henry in Division Tahi and none of them have a bowling average lower than the Cantabrian. Even better, none of those 15 bowlers have averages below 18. Veteran County seamer Chris Rushworth is the only bowler with a better strike-rate than Henry, taking 42w @ 34.04sr against Henry's 26w @ 34.15sr.

Combine Henry's T20 Blast mahi with his County Championship efficiency and there is a case to be made that Henry is the best bowler in England's domestic circuit right now. Henry was typically fantastic in last summer's Plunket Shield as well with 23w @ 11.69avg/2rpo and he is currently averaging below 27 in First-Class, List-A and T20 cricket. Dipping below 25avg in FC and T20.

Since Trent Boult chose to chill out, Henry has been graced with more consistent selection across the three Blackcaps formats and he's snapping up those opportunities. Henry has been a steady presence in the ODI team and while his ODI average of 25.59 is now slightly higher than his T20I bowling average (24), Henry is among Aotearoa's best ODI bowlers ever.

Here are the best ODI bowlers for Aotearoa (most wickets sorted by average)...

• Trent Boult: 187w @ 23.97avg

• Sir Richard Hadlee: 158w @ 21.56avg

• Shane Bond: 147w @ 20.88avg

• Ewan Chatfield: 140w @ 25.84avg

• Matt Henry: 127w @ 25.59avg

These five lads are the only Blackcaps ODI bowlers with 120+ wickets and averages below 26. The absence of Boult has allowed Henry to have his busiest year of Test bowling and we are only halfway through 2023. Henry has played four Tests this year and he has only done that before in 2016, with vastly different results...

2016: 161ov, 7w @ 65.1avg/2.8rpo

2023: 196ov, 19w @ 29.2avg/2.8rpo

It's been brewing though. Henry is in his third consecutive year of bowling 50+ overs with 5+ wickets and averages below 30 in Test cricket. As Boult opted out, Henry's workload increased and he has maintained lovely efficiency throughout this period.

The most growth has come in T20I cricket and the Boult/Henry overlap is less obvious in this format as Boult was already dictating his involvement for random T20I series. Henry played one or two T20Is in four consecutive years from 2014-17 and then stopped playing the shortest format. Henry has already bowled the most T20I overs of his career this year with 16ov, 6w @ 20.16avg/7.56rpo.

That makes it seem like Henry stunk at T20 bowling, but his last two Super Smash campaigns were solid…

• 2020/21 Super Smash: 14w @ 25.64avg/8.28rpo

• 2021/22 Super Smash: 14w @ 23.5avg/8.22rpo

Henry's T20 Blast career fits into this storyline perfectly...

• 2016: 7w @ 46.42avg/9.7rpo

• 2017: 15w @ 34.93avg/10.37rpo

• 2023: 31w @ 13.25avg/7.85rpo

The next major checkpoint for Henry is the ODI World Cup in India. Henry has only played two ODIs in India and he has a solid World Cup record of 16w @ 29.87avg/4.9rpo across 11 games. Henry has made major moves as a core Blackcaps seamer in all three formats and while he has benefitted from Boult's absence, Henry and Boult are likely to join forces with Tim Southee for the World Cup as the seaming leaders.

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