Black Caps record biggest test win to take 2-0 series victory over Zimbabwe

Sunday, 10 August 2025

Jacob Duffy’s test debut comes after 13 years in first-class cricket and 300 wickets. With key Blackcaps seamers injured, Duffy gets his chance to prove himself in the second test against Zimbabwe.

Second test, Bulawayo: Zimbabwe 125 and 117 (Nick Welch 47no; Zak Foulkes 5-37) lost to New Zealand 601-3 dec by an innings and 359 runs. Click here for full scoreboard.

ANALYSIS: New Zealand’s biggest test cricket win felt so disappointing.

The Black Caps completed a 2-0 series sweep of their hapless hosts in Zimbabwe with victory by an innings and 359 runs, as Zak Foulkes recorded the best bowling match figures by a NZ debutant in capturing 9-75.

It spelt Zimbabwe’s heaviest test defeat also, after a pathetic batting display on Saturday night (NZ time) saw them disintegrate to 117 all out in 28.1 overs in their second innings.

But the denouement felt like a massive letdown, compared to what could have been over the final three days of the match.

The visiting side were expected to resume their first innings on day three at 601-3, with fans salivating at the prospect of records being obliterated.

Zak Foulkes set a New Zealand record for a bowler on test debut as the visitors routed Zimbabwe. (FILE PHOTO)

New Zealand’s highest test team innings score record - 715-6 declared against Bangladesh in Hamilton in 2019 - sat there like a can on a fence, with the batters poised to take aim with an assault rifle from three metres away.

The biggest team score in test history - Sri Lanka’s 952-6 against India in Colombo in August 1997 - was a mouth-watering competent day’s batting against a pop-gun ‘attack’ away.

And the unbeaten overnight batters - Rachin Ravindra on 165 and Henry Nicholls on 150 - had a realistic shot at overtaking Brendon McCullum’s 302 to register NZ’s highest individual test score. If you prefer your glass full to the brim, chuck in the thought of one of that duo hunting down Brian Lara’s world record of 400 not out, which South African captain Wiaan Mulder bafflingly opted not to chase down recently at the same venue.

Instead, NZ skipper Mitchell Santner informed the umpires that his team’s innings was over, and Zimbabwe’s descent towards humiliation in recent matches fell a few steps further.

Yet there was little joy in watching the home team’s batting capitulate once more, when there was ample time for New Zealand’s batters to produce the opposite.

Sri Lanka’s tally came in the second innings of a drawn match which saw 1489 runs notched up and 14 wickets fall. But NZ could have batted on for four or five sessions and still recorded a whopping and comfortable victory.

It was akin to fervently believing on Xmas Eve you would wake up and find an iPhone 16 Pro Max box at the end of the bed, only to open a partially-filled pillowcase containing a mandarin, a March 1974 Reader’s Digest and a three-pack of handkerchiefs.

The embarrassing eleven of the home side could have at least had the audacity to be rolled for less than 26, after New Zealand decided not to pursue the opposing record.

Jacob Duffy picked up his maiden test wicket in Zimbabwe’s second dig, but a wicket off a no-ball when the hosts were 104-9 denied the Black Caps recording the second biggest innings win in test history.

Foulkes could have been forgiven thinking overnight that he could mark his test debut with a century with the bat. Instead, the 23-year-old surpassed the rookie bowling mark set just 18 months ago by Will O’Rourke, whose injury in the first test led to his fellow Cantabrian taking his chance in emphatic fashion this week.

O’Rourke had captured 9-93 against what was essentially a third-string South African test side early last year. Obviously neither he nor Foulkes felt any guilt at regularly ripping out opposing batters, simply because setting new marks against them wouldn't ‘truly count’, so it was a massive shame the same courtesy wasn’t given to Ravindra, Nicholls and the remaining NZ batters to attempt to do the same with their specialist skills.

Matt Henry again set Zimbabwe on the back foot with two wickets in his first three overs, and was barely required from there on, yet ended the series with 16 wickets at a single-figure average as he proved to be on another planet from the hosts.

The second consecutive three-day test rout meant new head coach Rob Walter had overseen an unbeaten tour, after his troops won five games on the trot to capture the tri-series T20 tournament title.

New Zealand’s next fixtures will be far tougher - even if it was impossible to get easier. They will host Australia and then England in a series of T20Is (and ODIs versus the latter) as part of a packed lead-up to the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in February, with the only home test series of the summer coming against the West Indies in December.