Boult relishes new ball pairing with Southee

Cricket365
September 15, 2014

New Zealand fast bowler Trent Boult has enjoyed much success with Tim Southee as his opening partner for the Black Caps, and he is pleased to be able to continue that with the Northern Knights at the Champions League T20.

Boult and Southee joined forces in their qualifying match against Lahore Lions to reduce the Pakistan side to 19 for five, and the Knights won by 72 runs. Boult said they worked well as a pair because they'd grown up on the field together.

Boult told <i>clt20.com</i>: "I enjoy bowling with him. I have known him for a lot of years now, we have grown up together and played age-group cricket together and I have learnt a lot from him.

"It [bowling in pairs] is an important thing in all formats. We both are pretty young in our careers and hopefully we have a lot more to come in the future.

"As a pair, we just go about keeping things simple. We try our best to put the ball in the right spot and hope for success from there."

Boult said that his team's batsmen had given them some tips after betting in tough conditions, saying: "It was a new wicket and was kind of tacky where the ball stuck in the wicket and swung.

"It was pretty tough batting conditions but our boys batted well and got the runs on the board. A lot of reports we got from our batsman was that the ball was sticking on to the wicket.

"We realised that the key for us was to vary the length and hit the wicket hard, which would make it tough for their batsmen to score. The game-plan for us was obviously not to give them any width and it came off."