Trent Boult Isn't Ready to Go Home, and Now He Has Backup

The veteran Kiwi may finally have the power play partner MI New York has been looking for all season - just in time to upend everything we thought we knew with two games left.

Cricket has left me feeling many emotions. Joy, sadness, anger - a lot of anger comes with supporting American cricket, I’ve discovered - but I have yet to be dumbfounded, like I thought I was seeing something that simply did not compute and might never be seen again.

But in the 19th over of New York’s dramatic Eliminator win over San Francisco, watching Trent Boult knock two massive sixes off Hassan Khan - one of which would have landed in Waco had it not hit the sight screen first - I saw something that left me deeply confused and utterly enthralled. He hit back-to-back sixes for the second time in his life (the other was with the Melbourne Stars in December 2022). Not only that, once he got New York’s target down to five with plenty of room to spare, the man had the audacity to start turning down singles until the final ball of the 19th, when he took one to face the first ball of the final over.

Boult will be 36 before the end of the month, and while he’s still in fine form with the ball, it’s not out of the question that Wednesday night was the last time Trent Boult will ever farm the strike in a professional game of cricket.

Dumbfounded.

I don’t know why that hit me the way it did. I’m certain he has done it before as part of a rearguard action, especially in tests where he has a half-century to his name, but I could only sit there and watch as a guy who had scored 20+ runs one other time in more than 270 T20s delivered 22 not-out going bombs away like a slugger batting fifth or sixth instead of the number nine trying to pull New York back from the brink of a spectacular faceplant.

In defiance of the night’s theme of brutal collapses, ill-judged shots, and ball dominance, Boult and Noshthush Kenjige delivered victory for New York with a 24 run ninth-wicket partnership, 21 of which came from Boult. He tied the game in the 20th over, and Kenjige scored the winning single on the following ball to push New York into the Challenger (or Qualifier 2 or whatever they’re calling it now) against Texas. The two had already teamed up earlier in the night when Boult made a theatrical juggling catch to get Kenjige his second wicket and put San Francisco down to 16-3. He took two power play wickets himself and three wickets in the game, so it was fitting they linked up for the final partnership to get New York over the line.

They may not be done teaming up.

Anyone who has watched cricket with any seriousness over the last 10 years is familiar with Boult’s resume as a world-class southpaw who was part of some of the best New Zealand teams ever from the late 2010s to the early 2020s. He’s a made-for-TV personality on the field with his frequent chirping - mostly to himself, sometimes to others, and occasionally to the ball - and his wide-eyed, look-at-me showstopper appeals that give off the same vibe as Jim Carrey’s Riddler in Batman Forever. Boult’s flair and personality are great entertainment and make him someone his own fans love and other teams’ fans can’t stand. That’s a perfect fit on a team like MI New York, which has become something of a “not those guys” team for everyone who isn’t fiercely loyal to the royal blue as much because the name evokes failed US sporting experiments of the past as anything to do with the actual team on the field. The name has led to multiple Freudian slips from multiple commentators this season referring to the team as “Mumbai.” I would call them any number of things if it could manifest Jasprit Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav at Grand Prairie.

Like Boult’s IPL campaign with the actual Mumbai Indians, which started slow for the first week or so before he and Bumrah started stacking wickets, he wasn’t getting the results he was looking for early in the MLC season: a player with a reputation for striking early had just one power play wicket in the first five games, just four wickets total, and the team dropped four of its first five contests. There wasn’t anything catastrophic going on with his mechanics or process; teams were simply content to play out the clear top threat and attack the other arms in the league’s most expensive bowling unit. But he took down both of Seattle’s openers in the power play on shorter balls in Grand Prairie on June 26th and got Gerald Coetzee flailing at a yorker outside off stump late in the chase to deliver 3 wickets for 31 runs in his spell.

New York lost that game, but Boult had his mojo back when the Razors needed it most and has taken nine wickets for 138 runs over his last five games, starting with that Seattle tilt, with seven of those wickets falling in the power play.

The leaders in the New York camp have struggled to find a good partner for Boult and keep that player out there. Boult is the only New York player this season to bowl 10 or more power play overs, bowling 22 of a possible maximum of 30 and a team total of 66 (that last number includes the regular season finale where Boult didn’t play). Naveen-ul-Haq (5-72 in nine overs) got hurt in Grand Prairie, and George Linde (2-51 in seven) debuted late before departing for national team duty with South Africa. Ehsan Adil (2-89 in seven), who had a decent 2024, hasn’t been up to par under fielding restrictions.

Enter Nosh Kenjige.

A combination of friendly pitches, reclaimed form, and not having any other choice has paved the way for the Alabama-born, Karnataka-raised left arm spinner to be Boult’s wingman. He has been building up slowly and now has his sea legs under him coming back from a hand injury sustained in the field during national team duty at Lauderhill in May. The wheels came off his spell in his fourth over against the Unicorns, but he looked as threatening as he has all season on Wednesday and cashed in twice in the power play. He’s the only New York bowler with a lower power play economy than Boult this season (6.86 to Boult’s 7.05), and only Boult and Kenjige have a 50% dot ball rate or higher with five or more power play overs.

Those two together got the kind of explosive results I thought we could see from New York when I picked them to win MLC in the preseason with a lineup that mostly withdrew, started hurt, or went bust. While they still might not have the depth they need in batting or bowling to be anything resembling a favorite, there’s enough there to build the one partnership on both sides of the ball that can spoil someone else’s party. They’ve already done it once, now Boult and Kenjige are looking for another shindig to crash.

I wonder how they feel about whistles?

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I hope you enjoyed this piece from Stumps & Stripes! We are in for a good one tonight between New York and Texas. For a glimpse of the TSK side of things, check out this piece I wrote earlier this week about Shubham Ranjane and his much-improved national team prospects after his display of power.