5 min learnFeb 8, 2026 06:08 PM IST
The Olympics or the World Cup? It’s a query that Tim Seifert had requested himself a thousand occasions. In school, his numbers glowed in each hockey and cricket. He racked up targets with as a lot ease as he ferried the leather-based ball into the distant corners of a cricket floor. After a number of rounds of deliberations, he selected cricket, the choice influenced as a lot by his father Marty as by his sporting idol Brendon McCullum.
The wicketkeeper-batsman was to not rue the choice, as he quickly grew to become one of the vital sought-after names within the franchise-cricket circuit. In Chennai, his fireworks lowered a treacherous chase into an off-the-cuff stroll together with his 65 off 42 as New Zealand swamped Afghanistan’s complete of 182 for six in 17.5 overs with 5 wickets in hand. The win provides respiratory area for the Black Caps within the perceived group of demise, with South Africa within the combine, alongwith Canada and UAE.
Watching McCullum’s batting movies is his largest stress-buster earlier than video games. When requested to open the innings for the primary time, towards India in Wellington in 2019, he grew tense. However he instantly Youtubed McCullum’s movies. He cracked 84 off solely 43 deliveries the following day. “Yeah, clearly. I’d be mendacity if I mentioned Baz wasn’t considered one of my heroes rising up,” Seifert later mentioned, at his post-match press convention. “Clearly you attempt to be your self on the market, however I undoubtedly have checked out Baz all through my childhood.”
He isn’t fairly a McCullum clone, however similarities exist. He’s comparable in construct, a compact slab of iron muscular tissues. He has robust, sq. shoulders and heavy forearms. He injects unimaginable energy into his strokes, most of them journey flat quite than excessive. He expenses down the monitor and brutalises quick bowlers. He’s robust down the bottom in addition to sq. off the sphere. For somebody who condemns pacers with energy, he offers spinners with sophistry. That he bludgeoned the Afghanistan seamers was little shock, however how he nullified their guileful spinners not solely instructed about his craft but additionally lowered the match right into a canter.
His choices have been particular. He both dedicated absolutely to the entrance foot and powered them down the bottom, or hung again and swept them powerfully. A swipe down the bottom later off Rashid captured his strategy towards spin. He stepped apart, put half a stride to achieve the ball’s pitch after which lashed him down the bottom. He’s equally nimble behind the stumps, and frighteningly fast. He runs so quick that when Rahmanullah Gurbaz top-edged Matt Henry, he reached underneath the ball quicker than the fine-leg fielder.
When New Zealand misplaced wickets in as many balls, within the second over of the chase, off Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, he and Glenn Phillips didn’t sequester right into a shell of conservatism. It’s tempting to build up via a disaster when the batting is deep. As an alternative, they launched a blistering counterattack. Phillips dealt the blows to the spinners; he smoked Rashid for a six and 4 in his first over, dishevelling his lengths. The Afghanistan talisman endured a uncommon unhealthy day. 4 overs price 36. Seifert needed to be content material with punishing the seamers. He did it admirably. Within the first 12 overs, he confronted solely eight balls from spinners. However after Phillips departed, posting a march-defining third-wicket stand of 74, he latched onto the spinners. He welcomed the 41-year-old Mohammed Nabi with a pair of sixes and a 4. He held out within the deep, cursing himself for mistiming a pull that he would have ferried over the fence with eyes blindfolded. However the match, by then, was rolling into an inevitable conclusion.
He’s reputed to own a 360-degree vary, however he seeks extra conservative channels as of late. None of his fours owed to his knack of improvising. He later defined the gist of his knock and the changes he made. “(In the beginning) we thought tempo was going to be simpler than spin. Then I believed typically the spin truly got here slightly bit simpler than the seam. So it went my means,” he advised the broadcasters.
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He isn’t an all-brawn hitter, however assaults with calculated precision. There was a part in the course of the innings the place he shut out the boundaries and dealt in singles. It was not the turbocharged knock he rattled out towards India in Thiruvananthapuram. In that recreation, New Zealand have been looking 271. Right here, the whole was almost a century of runs fewer, because of stifling power-play spells from New Zealand’s tempo trio of Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson and Jacob Duffy. Afghanistan mustered solely 44 runs of their powerplay. From the bottom, it was tough to submit an imposing complete on the featherbed floor.
If inconsistency had stalled numerous junctures of his profession, he has cracked it for the reason that tour of Pakistan in 2024. Since then, he has hammered 779 runs at a mean of 45 in 22 video games. The strike fee is an intimidating 162.97. He won’t exude McCullum’s persona or attraction, however he makes powerplays a nightmare for new-ball bowlers. The World Cup or Olympics? The dilemma now not piques him.