2026 New Zealand Test Tour Of Ireland/England: The Blackcaps Test Mixer
New Zealand have named their Test squads to tour Ireland and England with 19 players selected across both series, which is aligned with the 21 players who have played Test cricket for Aotearoa since the start of 2025. Mitchell Hay and Matthew Fisher are the players who made Test debuts in the last 12 months who are not part of the European tour with both being among the best emerging players in the Blackcaps pipeline.
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The Test against Ireland is not part of the World Test Championship followed by three Tests against England under the WTC umbrella. New Zealand is second on the WTC ladder at the time of typing with two wins and a draw, currently one of three teams along with Australia and South Africa who have over 70 percent of their available points.
Mitchell Santner and Jacob Duffy are the most notable players not in the touring party. Santner is now a genuine all-rounder and is tapping into the potential he showed early in his career, but Blackcaps have Glenn Phillips covering the spinny all-rounder position and Dean Foxcroft's selection is best viewed as a development spot in this specific position.
Santner could become available depending on his recovery from injury. If that happens, there are ways to squeeze Santner and Phillips in the same team. Phillips deserves his 1st 11 spot right now though and we'll cross the Santner bridge when/if we get there. Foxcroft's selection comes after working his way through the Blackcaps development system with Blackcaps ODI and T20I debuts in 2023 followed by NZ-A tours, then a strong tour of Bangladesh recently.
Foxcroft probably won't cover the top-order batting positions as Henry Nicholls has that role and he has previously batted lower down the order as an all-rounder in longform cricket for NZ-A. Foxcroft was solid with the bat last summer in domestic cricket with 30+ averages in each format and he had one of his weakest bowling seasons.
Most kiwi spinners average over 30 and Foxcroft has career bowling stats that are aligned with most, if not all spinners across the formats. While he took 3 wickets last season in all formats, Foxcroft has a First-Class bowling average of 30.53 and had three good bowling seasons in FC cricket prior to last season...
2022/23: 7w @ 32.8avg
2023/24: 15w @ 32.4avg
2024/25: 18w @ 30.6avg
The absence of Duffy may concern some folks who are still catching up to the depth available across all positions for Blackcaps. Duffy has chosen to stay in Aotearoa for whanau reasons and while he has been an awesome all-format bowler over the past year, he has chosen to give other high quality seamers an opportunity.
Duffy settled into his all-format groove while Will O'Rourke and Kyle Jamieson were out injured. Now they are both back in the mix and they join Matt Henry as the three best seamers in the squad, while Nathan Smith and Zak Foulkes are brewing as all-rounders. With Phillips batting seven and offering a spin option, Blackcaps can select four seamers from the group of four just named.
Smith or Foulkes will probably take an all-rounder slot below Phillips. That leaves the Henry/O'Rourke/Jamieson trio in the 1st 11 and Blair Tickner's resurgence continues with his squad selection. Blackcaps can inject Smith/Foulkes into the team as the next best seamers because both have ample skills to succeed in England and it will be interesting to see how they are ranked with Tickner as next up seamers.
Sears is joined by Michael Rae and Kristian Clarke as seamers in the touring group. Clarke is best viewed as an all-rounder in the same zone as Smith/Foulkes, while Sears and Rae offer more seam bowling depth. Sears is as hostile as seam bowers get and Rae operated just below 140km/h in his debut Test series.
Including Duffy and Fisher who both made their Test debuts in Zimbabwe last year, New Zealand has 11 seamers in the mix. Here's a loose ranking with their Test averages…
Matt Henry: 27.13
Jacob Duffy: 16.28
Will O'Rourke: 24.28
Kyle Jamieson: 19.73
Nathan Smith: 39.8
Zak Foulkes: 28.38
Blair Tickner: 29.18
Ben Sears: 32.2
Michael Rae: 28.25
Matthew Fisher: 19
Kristian Clarke (FC: 32.79)
Will Young has slipped out of his back up batter slot and is only named for the Ireland series. He has been overtaken by Henry Nicholls who has been a dominant force in domestic cricket since he was overtaken by Young a few years ago. The Tom Blundell selection fits this zone as well because Blundell fought for his Test career in similar style to Nicholls in domestic cricket last season.
Blundell averaged 40+ in all three formats for Wellington last season and finished the summer with scores of 45, 51, 41, 49*, 21, 28, 6, 6, 98*, 96, 35, 25 and 62. All of that happened after the Test series vs West Indies which was part of Blundell's dip in form at that level over the last two years, while Hay scored 61 runs on Test debut.
Part of the Blundell equation is how he excels in colonial cricket. Blundell averages 59.8 against England and 69.5 in England, plus everyone in the Aotearoa cricket scene loves Blundell as a team-first lad. The most important thing here though is how Blundell and Nicholls are fighting for their Test careers and the only way for them to do that is dominating the domestic level.
Nicholls averaged 30+ in all three formats last season but blew out to 96.6 in Plunket Shield and 73.5 in Ford Trophy. The issue for Young is that his dip in Test form came with a dip in ODI form and less dominance at the domestic level. Young averaged 15 in Plunket Shield last season and while he did well to put up 46avg in Ford Trophy, he was well below the benchmark set by Nicholls and Blundell.
Now it's up to Young to fight for his career as a Test/ODI Blackcap. He is likely to get a crack in the Test vs Ireland and then he will need to find runs in through the rest of 2026 to not only counter the challenge of Nicholls, but also the wave of young batters who are hungry to shake up a settled batting unit.
The best emerging batters chasing Test debuts are Tim Robinson (24yrs), Muhammad Abbas (22yrs), Bevon Jacobs (24yrs), Curtis Heaphy (22yrs), Rhys Mariu (24ys) and Matt Boyle (23yrs). They aren't listed in any specific order and they all have different argument for their case as the best emerging Test batter, which highlights a super competitive battle in this pocket to demand selection.
Abbas is also a lefty seamer who could be viewed in the same emerging all-rounder group as Smith, Foulkes and Clarke. His bowling is best viewed as a bonus right now and his batting is good enough to earn selection just as a batter, while growing into his bowling workloads at the international level.
Nicholls for example isn't just fighting to crack Blackcaps squad, competing with Young and the other established Blackcaps, he's trying to stay ahead of Jacobs who has FC average of 44.9 in the middle order zone. The emerging batters need to be as productive as Nicholls has been and this is the best for all as it raises the standards required to be selected.
It's the same in all zones but the wicket-keeping battle is another good example. Hay has already given Blundell a nudge with his performance on Test debut and while Dane Cleaver offered experienced in an emerging Blackcaps ODI/T20I tour of Bangladesh, Hay should still be the next best Test wicket-keeper.
61 runs on Test debut and a FC average of 45.14 paint that picture for Hay. Otago's Max Chu is quickly rising through the pipeline though as he's stacked up his two best seasons of domestic cricket across all formats, leading to NZ-A selection alongside Hay for their tour of Sri Lanka. Chu has been so good as a lefty and leader for Otago that he is far closer to Hay than many would assume, giving Hay some pressure for runs and the flowing upwards to Blundell.
Test batters since start of 2024
Rachin Ravindra: 1,453 runs @ 53.8avg/68.6sr
Kane Williamson: 1,198 runs @ 57avg/55.8sr
Devon Conway: 1,083 runs @ 41.6avg/58.9sr
Tom Latham: 1,060 runs @ 35.3avg/52.6sr
Daryl Mitchell: 723 runs @ 31.4avg/51sr
Will Young: 633 runs @ 39.5avg/50.8sr
Glenn Phillips: 542 runs @ 28.5avg/71.8sr
Tom Blundell: 501 runs @ 21.7avg/71.2sr
Henry Nicholls: 188 runs @ 188avg/62sr
There is no specialist spinner selected for the European tour and yet there is plenty of intriguing depth cooking here as well. Phillips will operate as the lead spinner and Ravindra can add a few overs of lefty spin if required, then Foxcroft can cover Phillips or extend the batting line up and offer a spin option if spinny conditions are presented.
Santner would be a specialist spinner but he is injured. Ajaz Patel is currently playing County Championship cricket in England where he has 10w @ 55.5avg/3.7rpo at the time of typing. Blackcaps usually want a bit of batting juice in their spin roles and that's why Foxcroft is given a development opportunity to grow in this role, leaving Patel to focus on Tests in favourable spin conditions.
England will require spin overs but no Test spinner has dominated Tests in England since the start of 2020. Nathan Lyon's the only notable spinner below 30avg in this period and even then he hasn't been as effective in England (30.93avg) as other countries - like Aotearoa where he averages 16.91.
Spinners in England since start of 2020
Shoaib Bashir: 34w @ 36avg/3.7rpo
Jack Leach: 20w @ 35.2avg/3rpo
Ravindra Jadeja: 18w @ 55.7avg/2.9rpo
Moeen Ali: 15w @ 50.8avg/3.5rpo
Nathan Lyon: 14w @ 28.7avg/3.3rpo
Blackcaps have Santner, Phillips and Foxcroft as spinners who skew towards all-rounders and Cole McConchie is a reliable all-rounder who can plug holes if needed. Patel is the best pure spinner and then there is Ish Sodhi, Adithya Ashok, Jayden Lennox and Tim Pringle offering spin depth. Ashok and Lennox have already settled into ODI/T20I roles for Blackcaps, while Pringle was the best spinner in domestic cricket last season and followed it up with an excellent NZ-A tour of Sri Lanka recently.
Pringle's selection for NZ-A signaled his move from representing Netherlands to Aotearoa. He has also scored runs down the order for Northern Districts and NZ-A so Pringle could development into a solid batter, while already being the best batter of the depth spinners.
Here is a 1st 11 of players in the current squad...
Tom Latham, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell (wk), Glenn Phillips, Nathan Smith, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Will O’Rourke
2nd 11
Rhys Mariu, Curtis Heaphy, Will Young, Henry Nicholls, Dean Foxcroft, Mitchell Hay (wk), Mitchell Santner, Zak Foulkes, Blair Tickner, Ben Sears, Jacob Duffy
3rd 11
Tim Robinson, Matthew Boyle, Muhammad Abbas, Bevon Jacobs, Cole McConchie, Max Chu (wk), Kristian Clarke, Ajaz Patel, Adihthya Ashok, Michael Rae, Matthew Fisher
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