Grant Elliott is cricket’s comeback sensation of 2015. Recalled to the Black Caps squad in January for the Cricket World Cup, the 35-year-old all-rounder quickly owned the five position with sizzling form in seven build-up games against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, averaging 72. He’s since chipped in with some hearty fielding and a pair of 29s in both the Black Caps’ stonking Cup-opening victory over Sri Lanka and Tuesday’s scratchy win against Scotland.
In good-humoured conversation at a Wellington hotel prior to the tournament, Elliott shows the intelligence and composed disposition seen in his best innings – which include a recent century made during the fifth one-day international against Sri Lanka in Dunedin. He and Wellington team-mate Luke Ronchi obliterated records that day: Elliott’s shrewd 104 not out made him the second oldest Kiwi to score an ODI ton while the pair’s undefeated stand of 267 off 180 balls is easily the highest ever international partnership for the sixth wicket, and the highest total for any wicket for New Zealand against a top-eight cricketing nation.
Previously, Elliott had carved a name out for himself with a superb 115 against Australia in 2009: the first ODI hundred a Black Cap had scored at the Sydney Cricket Ground, resplendent with elegant cover drives. An impressive showing on his recall to the side for New Zealand’s historic 2013 ODI series win against South Africa – the country of Elliott’s birth – was another career high point.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, but nevertheless a moment that sticks fast in the memory, 2008 saw Elliott involved in a dark moment in English cricket’s recent history. As he ran between the wickets at The Oval, bowler Ryan Sidebottom took Elliott out, and the England team refused to drop their subsequent run-out appeal as he lay injured on the ground.
Though it would be entirely understandable if the incident had provided added motivation for his appearance against England in the Black Caps’ third World Cup outing, in Wellington on Friday, Elliott remains gracious. “Oh, heat of the battle,” he says. “It was a tough situation for [Paul] Collingwood.” He gives the then-England captain the benefit of the doubt, even though Collingwood later apologised for the incident. “Collingwood didn’t see what was going on, so I guess he was going on the words of all his senior players.”
Before the World Cup started, there was talk that the Black Caps can no longer be classed as dark horses, their perennial tournament tag. I tell him I’m picking a New Zealand-South Africa final, but Elliott is wary of talking the Black Caps up. “There’s a lot of match winners we’ve got. It’s on the day, isn’t it? It’s about getting to that knockout stage and then you need that luck to go your way. I mean, you can be dropped in noughts and go and score 100 and win the game. We’ll just take it one game at a time.”
The Black Caps were convincing against Sri Lanka, winning by 98 runs. But, Elliott excepted, the Kiwi batsmen’s dismissals were soft in the win over Scotland, when the co-hosts lost seven wickets and were made to sweat on occasion. Elliott’s 29 was second only to Kane Williamson’s 38, yet afterwards he challenged the disapproving opinions swirling round that his side’s batting performance was of concern.
Like England’s Michael Lumb and Jonathan Trott, Africa-raised cricketers who have gone on to distinguish themselves elsewhere, Elliott was educated at Johanesburg’s St Stithians College. He went on to play for Surrey, and faced Phillip Hughes’s Middlesex side in 2009. “Phillip scored a big hundred. He was outstanding. Such a shame to see someone lost to the game so early on.”
Does Hughes’s tragic death weigh on his mind when facing fast bowlers? “I think it’s just unlucky, it’s tragic,” he says. “You can’t think of that when you go into bat. But obviously the guys that were really close to him, it’s shaken them up. I think it’s just a freak event, he’s really unlucky. He was a magnificent player.”
On the topic of Australia, New Zealand’s fellow World Cup hosts, where does Elliott stand on the controversial sledging that caused such a storm during India’s pre-World Cup visit there? “I like to see emotions in cricket. You don’t mind sledging as long as it’s not personal. If it gets to that personal side then it’s just childish, like you’re in a playground again, six years old. I don’t mind it because I think it brings out the emotions in players. I think the public want to see emotions, they want to see a battle, they want to see a fast bowler versus someone who’s trying to hit him out the ground. So I quite like those battles. If there’s a couple of verbals, like I said, if it doesn’t get personal, that’s fine. It’s just the heat of the battle. Obviously the umpires are there to make sure it doesn’t get to a level that’s unacceptable.”
David Warner was fined for his part in an ugly on-field spat with Rohit Sharma during that Tri-Series, and Elliot is keen to stress there is a line that must not be crossed. “You have to keep reminding yourself of the spirit of cricket and not take it to that level...I was brought up in the Johannesburg league system, so that was pretty hairy. I started playing league cricket when I was 14, so the abuse that we got was definitely not acceptable.”
Elliot is no stranger to standing up for a cause: the father of two is an environmentalist and believes action is needed on climate change. His passion for a greener future, developed while working for a LED company in the Netherlands, shines through. “I did a lot of retrofits and just saw how, to me, it was almost a no-brainer for businesses, how they should change to a greener light source... the implications it has around the world in terms of energy consumption, carbon savings, and sulphur savings are amazing.” Having young children has impacted on him even more, Elliott says. “I want to look after the future.”
But unlike David Pocock, his fellow southern African turned Antipodean, Elliott won’t be getting arrested for chaining himself to a digger to protest coal mines. “No, I’m not much of a protester. I think it will eventually just happen organically. People eventually have to change.”
It’s a sentiment that echoes his own development as a cricketer: given he didn’t make his international debut until in his late 20s, Elliott’s rise could also be labelled somewhat organic, a slow burner. He has changed as a player, and now at the top of his game, with New Zealand in form and on home soil, the immediate future is bright.
