Santner emulates Vettori and rouses Chepauk

Mitchell Santner grew up idolising Daniel Vettori and switched from left-arm seam to left-arm fingerspin after watching Vettori make bowling look easy. On Wednesday, when Santner pitched one on middle and leg and got it to rip away past Mohammad Nabi's outside edge to hit the top of off stump, he became only the second New Zealand spinner, after his hero Vettori, to 100 ODI wickets.

"Yeah, it's obviously nice to get to that milestone," Santner said after New Zealand thumped Afghanistan and sealed an NRR-boosting win. "Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking about it too much leading into the game; it's just [about] trying to perform my role and do a job out there just like every other game and I think I'm 200 odd wickets behind him (laughs), so it's going to be a tough challenge to get there.

"But yeah, I obviously watched a lot of him do his thing over a long period of time. And I guess with the absence of T20 cricket, they played a lot of one-dayers, so it might be pretty tough to get there now."

Santner pushed his ODI career tally up to 102 and tournament tally up to 11. He is currently the highest wicket-taker in the World Cup, with his team-mate Matt Henry just behind him, with nine strikes. Trent Boult and Lockie Ferguson have also contributed handsomely to New Zealand's unbeaten run so far. Santner shared the spotlight with the seamers.

"It's obviously nice to come here [India] and see the ball spin a little bit," Santner said. They're kind of far, you don't really get those [pitches] in New Zealand. So, yeah, I think as a whole, the bowling, we've been bowling in partnerships, that's what we talk about.

"I mean the guys upfront today - [Trent] Boult and Matt Henry did an exceptional job in getting that run rate up and then it kind of makes them [Afghanistan batters] want to play bigger shots. I think as a partnership, as a unit, we've been bowling pretty well and I was lucky to chip in today for a few, but I think the way the seam [attack] has kind of set that up was massive for us."

Santner was also involved in what was arguably the play of the day and a bonafide contender for the catch of the tournament. He leapt across to his left from short midwicket and pulled off a sensational one-handed catch to dismiss Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi and rouse the Chepauk crowd.

Chennai is Santner's home base in the IPL, but the crowd here isn't used to seeing Santner in full flight, as Super Kings haven't been able to accommodate both Ravindra Jadeja and Santner in their XI regularly. On Wednesday, 15,525 spectators soaked in every bit of Santner and cheered him on with gusto.

"Yeah, it's obviously nice to be playing here," Santner said. "Obviously, watched a lot of games here and played the odd one, and speak for Dev [Devon Conway] as well, it's pretty cool to play in front of some loyal fans. Downplaying that catch a little bit, but it was pretty good."

Santner, also the leader of New Zealand's spin attack, was pleased with the progress of Glenn Phillips, the bowler. In the injury-enforced absence of Michael Bracewell, Phillips has slotted in as New Zealand's offspinner and emerged as a partnership-breaker though he went wicketless against Afghanistan.

"He's been bowling a lot, works on his bowling all the time," Santner said of Phillips. "And it's actually been very important for us, especially not having Michael Bracewell here, that kind of offspin option, along with me and Rachin [Ravindra].

"So yeah, I think trying to get a few overs out of three of us at certain times through the innings has been [good] and he's been a bit of a golden arm of late, which is always nice to have."