By the end of the tourists\u2019 second innings, Rae was striding in with his Dennis Lillee action in full pomp. Whispers of a fledgling fan club emerged, and rumours swirled that headband stocks had been depleted across the country in numbers not seen since the legend of Chris Martin.<\/p>\n
The nine-wicket second-test victory also guaranteed Rae a seat for one of the New Zealand game\u2019s most revered traditions: the wicketkeeper and bowlers\u2019 limousine ride up Mt Victoria.<\/p>\n
Match figures of 6-111 \u2013 three wickets in each innings \u2013 from 30 overs was a quality return, but Rae brought a cult status to proceedings.<\/p>\n
The hint was laid by Tom Latham with an impish grin pre-match.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a bit of a character. It\u2019s an environment where you can come in and be yourself straight away, and he\u2019s certainly done that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daryl Mitchell added to the myth mid-test.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you know Razor well, but he\u2019s a beauty.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe brings a lot of energy to the group with the sweatband charging in. He loves doing a job. He\u2019ll probably have to do a lot of hard work into the wind at times, but he\u2019s awesome to have around.\u201d<\/p>\n
So it proved.<\/p>\n
Each time Rae powered to the crease, he wafted his right forearm and wrist away as if holding a wand and preparing a magic trick which, you could argue, occurred six times.<\/p>\n
In the first innings, three balls into his second spell, the tension broke when he claimed a maiden wicket.<\/p>\n
John Campbell shaped to flay a cover drive that found Mitchell at first slip as Rae reaped the rewards of dialling back to a good length.<\/p>\n
Justin Greaves and Kemar Roach, after first-class bests at Hagley Oval, also succumbed to his conjuring when he pitched up and secured a caught behind and lbw respectively.<\/p>\n
Rae hit the top of Campbell\u2019s off-stump to propel New Zealand\u2019s charge through the West Indies\u2019 second innings on the second day.<\/p>\n
After a night\u2019s rest, he roared back to secure the prime wicket of Shai Hope. Rae forced a false shot with a full ball, pouching him caught-and-bowled.<\/p>\n
Jayden Seales completed the sextet of dismissals with an edge wafting outside off-stump.<\/p>\n
The sight of Rae wandering on to the hallowed turf to celebrate with Canterbury teammate and fellow debutant Mitch Hay in the aftermath felt deserved; a moment to savour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the end of the tourists\u2019 second innings, Rae was striding in with his Dennis Lillee action in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[107439,20251,806,75341,7022,42574,51374,35142,11424,21703,12811,28523,5338,5494,117,111,43,139,69,90,96716,10665,3807],"class_list":["post-179771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-alderson","tag-andrew","tag-as","tag-basin","tag-black","tag-caps","tag-cult","tag-debut","tag-finds","tag-hay","tag-hero","tag-indies","tag-makes","tag-michael","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-rae","tag-reserve","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}