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Black Caps star Trent Boult says he looked too young to play when he was picked for a potential test cricket debut for the New Zealand national team against Australia in 2011.
Boult, now 30, was a fresh-faced 22-year-old lad from Tauranga with braces on his teeth at the time.
He told the podcast on the Black Caps’ YouTube channel that a teammate even made a joke about it.
“I had braces the week before I got selected and I remember going to the orthodontist and saying: ‘I can’t go to Australia with a set of braces on my teeth’.
“I specifically remember it, I walked out there to bat absolutely packing myself and Brad Haddin looked at me and goes ‘mate, does your mother know where you are?’.
“He was just getting into me, and I was s–ting myself… [but] I remember the celebrations after that, winning by six runs”, he said.
Boult was called up to the team as a late inclusion for an injured Daniel Vettori but ended up not playing in that first test in Brisbane.
Boult now has 267 wickets from 67 tests, fourth on New Zealand’s all-time list behind Sir Richard Hadlee (431), Vettori (361) and Tim Southee (284) fourth on New Zealand’s all-time list behind Sir Richard Hadlee (431), Vettori (361) and Tim Southee (284).