KEY POINTS:
Dan Vettori's heroics apart, another lefthander spent the final day of the first test win over Bangladesh this week enhancing a quietly growing reputation as a big-hearted cricketer.
As Vettori pushed New Zealand ever closer to their target of 317 at Chittagong, the final shutting off of the
hosts' hopes came in an 82-run sixth wicket stand with Daniel Flynn.
Flynn's one regret was getting out for 49 with the scores tied. Hitting the winning runs, to bring up his maiden test 50, would have been an ideal conclusion to a fine innings.
The 23-year-old Tauranga batsman's reputation is growing as a gritty competitor capable of knuckling down and providing the anchor in a batting lineup not short of strokemakers.
He came into the New Zealand team during the Twenty20 series against England last February, went to England on the subsequent tour where the first signs of why the national selectors fancied him first emerged.
At Lord's in the first test, he batted 174 minutes for 29 not out in the second innings, coming in at a point where there was still the chance of a final-day tumble. He watched Jacob Oram's fine 101 from the other end in a 132-run stand.
In the second test at Manchester, on four, he missed an attempted hook at James Anderson and lost a couple of teeth.
Four visits to the dentist and five days of nausea followed. It could have been a shattering experience but Flynn was phlegmatic.
"It was there to be hit, I just missed it really. It's just one of those things," he said at the time.
He also opined that "if you let it get on top of you, it's going to affect you for the rest of your career".
Flynn was back for the third test where a second innings 49 over two-and-a-half hours in a wretched New Zealand performance again suggested he had the ticker for the big occasion.
So the defiant support of his captain at Chittagong should not have come as a surprise.
"Yeah, it would have been nice to be there at the end and finish it off properly," he said this week. "It was just great to make a contribution and see us home."
Flynn, who captained the New Zealand under-19 team at the 2003-04 junior World Cup, accepts that his role in the batting order may have already been defined.
Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Brendan McCullum and Jacob Oram bat either side of him and are by inclination aggressive batsmen, who don't relish being tied down and who do their best work with a positive mindset.
Every decent test batting lineup needs a rock and Flynn is showing all the signs of becoming that player.
"I think it's my role in the side now. Obviously there's a lot of strokemakers round me and if I'm able to hang out there and play a support role to them, it's going to help the side," he added.
A long-term spot is beckoning, but he's not getting carried away. With a test average of 31.8 from seven innings, he knows there's plenty more learning to be done, although he's feeling part of the setup, which comes with producing notable contributions to the cause.
"I suppose so, but there's still a long way to go. I was disappointed the way I performed in the one-day series. But now I've got a chance in the test series to turn it round. Scoring runs, that's my job and what I've got to do."
