De Grandhomme: New Zealand's new workaday hero

As the game evolves at warp speed, as cricketers' bodies become less attainable and skills become ever more honed, it can be comforting for fans when the unremarkable bears fruit.

In New Zealand's attack were Tim Southee and Trent Boult: the big-swinging thoroughbreds. They had Neil Wagner: the grim, tenacious, hatchet man. Yet on Friday, it was a seamer who barely breached 128kph that brought the world's no. 2 side to its knees. It was uninspiring line-and-length diligence that found success on a pitch prepared for better-equipped quicks.

In he came, a modest hero in Colin de Grandhomme, operating off a mid-sized run-up - shorter than a spearhead's, longer than an Australia innings - all athletic competence, with perfectly-adequate rhythm in his strides, sufficient hip drive when he got to the crease, and satisfactory wrist position when the ball came to be released.

Some fast bowling invites comparisons to bolts of lightning and hellfire; much mythologised are quicks who scratch at the ground like stallions about to charge, whose nostrils pour with steam as they advance, who raise the smell of sulphur from the surface when a bouncer has been bowled.

For much of Friday, de Grandhomme was more a strongly-worded letter than the booming sound of thunder, and yet, none of his more illustrious teammates could rattle Pakistan like he did. He bowled dot balls to Babar Azam until he drew a poor shot twice - the first to gully was dropped, the second to the slips was fatal. He had the great Younis Khan out for 2; Younis' feet stapled to the crease in a complete reversal of his batting through much of the England tour, as he reached unavailingly for a cover drive.

By the end of the innings, de Grandhomme had ripped out the top order and set the tail on the run with his middle-of-the-road, wobbly medium. His 6 for 41 were the best-ever figures for a New Zealand debutant, breaking a record that stood for 65 years.

The most impressive wicket among those was that of Azhar Ali, when de Grandhomme weaselled a ball between bat and pad to set off stump on a jaunt, and Pakistan into decline. But although he said he had been quite excited at the sight of the uprooted wicket, raising a single fist into the air in celebration, there still was something innocuous about de Grandhomme, even in his most animated moment. For a Tim Southee or a Wahab Riaz, that celebration would have seemed like the power-pose of a triumphant warrior. De Grandhomme brought to mind a middle-aged protestor walking down the main street, complaining about the rising price of milk.

"De Grandhomme was hitting the right areas," Azhar said after play. "There's enough there in the pitch, a lot of grass on it, and there was a lot of moisture as well. The lengths and lines were really good. If you hit in that area, you're going to get a good result. On that kind of pitch you know that even a bowler who's not as fast can get a lot out of it. He has more control obviously. If you have less pace you have more swing and more control as well."

As the wickets began to stack up through the day, de Grandhomme's moustache drew comparisons in the media with those of yesteryear's great quicks - Dennis Lillee, Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev. But those were moustaches with personality and verve. Lillee, for example, had a malice to his handlebars; Hadlee, a touch of deviousness in his wispy tips. Kapil's was upstanding and robust, giving off the impression that it would only be too happy to help an old woman cross a Chandigarh intersection. De Grandhomme's, comparatively, is characterless; it's as if his short-back-and-sides haircut has been perfectly replicated on his upper lip, the whole thing finished in a matte, standard-issue brown.

And while he produced a performance that evoked New Zealand's proud military-medium tradition, Pakistan produced a vintage batting collapse of their own, replete with Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis having to come together on the first morning with "we're-getting-too-old-for-this-sh**" looks on their faces. Misbah would grow increasingly frustrated through the innings, as team-mates deserted him.

They are so far back in the game now, they must summon more Pakistan stereotypes to pose a threat in the match. The attack must make a charge to spark a New Zealand collapse; the batsmen will likely have to overturn a first-innings deficit.

On day two they were undone by a bowler who no one suspected much of, but who did just enough. For Pakistan it was a reminder their quest to regain the top ranking would be a difficult one; for the rest of us, that heroes can emerge from the unlikeliest places.