Beyond the dive: The many layers of Glenn Phillips

Glenn Phillips is often seen airborne on the field and off it, he quite literally takes flight. A certified pilot, Phillips was found mid-flight on his hotel room's full-fledged flight simulator when Cricbuzz dropped by for a chat. In this freewheeling conversation, the dynamic New Zealand all-rounder opens up about the intricacies of his blessed cricketing body, his remarkable comeback from a career-threatening injury, his deep-rooted passion for red ball cricket, the historic Test series win in India, and his experience playing for Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket.

Tell us a bit about your family...

Both mom and dad are athletes. Mom played hockey at a higher level, like South Africa Bs. Dad played provincial hockey, and he pretty much played sort of every sport under the sun. So I guess genetically, sport is in the family. And then my grand dad, as well, was a professional football player, so he definitely had the athlete gene running through his body. He always spoke about watching Jonty Rhodes and used him as an example for both me and my brother all the time when it comes to fielding. So maybe that's where it comes from.

You've consistently pushed the limits of athleticism with some truly jaw dropping efforts in the field. Do you still see a scope for improvement?

I think I probably pushed my body to the limit that it can go. I don't think I can jump any higher or run any faster or throw any harder, so I think at the moment, I've probably peaked out. And obviously with age, it tends to not be the way we want to go with things slowly going downhill as our bodies get a little bit older. But for now, I try to keep maintaining my physical fitness and my agility to be able to at least keep going with maximal effort the whole way through, or at least for now anyway, obviously it does produce injuries to a certain extent. When you push your body hard, the limits tend to push back. So hopefully, just with a few less injuries, with time to come, then maybe I can keep doing what I'm doing.

You've consistently pushed the limits of athleticism with some truly jaw-dropping efforts in the field. Do you ever reflect on the extent of what you're capable of as a fielder and if there's something you'd like to do more?

Oh no, no. I don't do those things at training at all. There's no point putting your body at risk at this stage, especially when it's now a career in a profession. If you get injured for something that's got nothing riding on it, then what's the point? So for me, everything special actually happens in a game. I'm very basic at training. I try to catch as many basic balls as possible, because most of the time, things that come are basics. And when it comes to the reactionary diving catches, I try to leave those just for the game. If I have a diving opportunity at training, generally I won't dive there's not worth the risk of injury.

With your level of athleticism, have you come close to breaking any records?

Not proper athletics records! (laughs), those are the guys that are next level fast. When it comes to agility, potentially, there's probably a few things that I could do, maybe like a T test or something like that. I reckon I'd be pretty close to but when it comes to straight out speed or straight out strength, the people that train in those specific areas definitely are a long way ahead of me. But when you look at cricket as a profession as a whole, we generally don't have the fastest or the strongest people going around. We have people that are very good with hand eye coordination and skill based attributes. But generally being exceptionally fast or exceptionally strong doesn't exactly attract people to play cricket I suppose. Usually it's more coordination and the mental side of things. But compared to cricketers, I would say, yes, I'm relatively fast, but not compared to proper athletes.

I was coming to those tests. You were touching on the T test, I wanted to understand, have there been tests done on your body that might have shown a particular set of indicators that might be remarkably higher than other individuals?

Actually, no! I don't have anything genetically different. I've got very tight muscles, maybe that produces speed a little more. People that tend to have tighter tendons and tighter muscles can produce power a little bit more, and that probably equates to the speed. The other thing, I suppose, is just pure hard work. And I guess giving it my all, but no nothing genetically that I've been tested on.

If you can explain what the T test is and what was your reading on it?

It was pretty much a test for moving laterally, moving forward, moving back, being able to shuffle, touch. So basically, you run out 10 meters, touch the cone, side shuffle to the left. That's about five meters. Touch a cone all the way across 10 meters to the other cone and then side shuffle back, touch the cone and then backtrack. And it's usually anywhere around 10 seconds, or 10 or 11 seconds is pretty good. If you get in the nine seconds, you're sort of top of the range. And I was just under nine seconds. My record for a 100m dash back at school with a hand timer was 11.2 seconds. So it's not fast compared to athletic standards, but for cricketers anyone running under 12 is pretty quick.

Your fielding skills must surely earn you a unique kind of respect in the dressing room. Can you recall any moments when you truly felt appreciated for it? Maybe a small gesture or exchange that stuck with you?

No, the love fielding just comes down to wanting to be a team man and understanding that I can't necessarily always perform with the bat and ball, so the only thing that I can do is give my full attitude and full energy in the field. So it's not for anyone in particular. It's not to...not for any gratification or glory or anything, per se. It's just, one, simply because I love it. And then two, if I can't expect someone to give 100% to me, if I'm not giving 100% to them. So that's that's probably the basis of it, it's very it's a very mundane reason for doing things. But that doesn't really need a better reason than that, I suppose.

How difficult was it to come back from the injury that you sustained while playing for Gujarat Titans?

Well, I tore my adductor right off my pelvis bone.So my adductor longus and my adductor brevis were pretty much torn off as well. So grade three for my adductor brevis and a grade four for my adductor longus, which, thankfully, didn't need surgery. Normally, what they do for surgery is they just go and cut the tendon and let it grow back on its own. So since I had ripped it off completely, it allowed me to have that week that I had already recovered, it still counted, and it didn't have to be redone or anything like that, which was helpful.

But then I guess I'm not one to sit still, and I generally take my own rehab precautions into my own hands. Obviously, physios and strength and conditioning coaches have a say, and all the information. But generally, I run my own ship for the most part, and I've never had to be told, do this, do that. I generally go to them and say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and they either agree or disagree, and we chop and change, and we have a bit of a conversation. So, the way that I push things, compared to potentially someone who would just let the recovery ride out, is a little bit different.

I would probably try and push into that 2% pain threshold, to try and push it along a little faster each time, as opposed to doing things that don't produce any pain. That whole no pain, no gain mindset. Obviously, there is a fine balance between pushing too hard and re-injuring, and then pushing hard enough that there's a benefit coming out of it. And it was definitely a slow process. It was still nine weeks before I could get back on the field. But initially, when the physio looked at it from GT, they thought at least three months. So to come back at least three weeks earlier, which was pretty cool. The lucky thing is the certain areas and the movements that I do on the field weren't so affected by it. The specific movement that caused the injury was throwing across my body and that tore the tendon off. So as long as I'm avoiding movements like kicking and throwing across myself, I can generally be pretty safe on the field.

Then, obviously, cricket is a skill based sport, so as soon as my batting and my bowling were up to standard, then I was ready to play. I'm still, probably another couple of months off being able to stand on a line and race someone. I'm still probably a bit slow from that perspective. I tried to race my brother the other day before coming out here, and he's still a long way ahead. So he's sort of the benchmark. He's quicker than me, over 60 meters. So, he's the benchmark that I would say I need to get back up to before I'm happy that I'm at 100%.

You'd mentioned somewhere that off spin is your passion. You would perhaps associate that discipline of bowling as being the least flashy or complex, which seems to clash with the kind of personality you bring to the game. So why off spin?

I have no idea why I love it. I think maybe because of how hard it is. Yes, it's a very boring art, and there's nothing much to it, but it also is a very difficult art to get right from a match perspective, because batters tend to try and hit off spin more than they try to hit anything else. Which means you have to be better at what you do than a person who say bowls left arm spin or leg spin, because you have to be extra accurate, and if you aren't, you get hurt quite badly.

So, I think maybe there's the challenge element of it, not so much the art itself, but the mindset, the understanding and finding a way to get someone out with an art that probably doesn't provide as much variation. It's just that repetition basis. There's something about being able to do things for a long period of time that I really enjoy. I'll stand on an archery line and shoot arrows the same type, the same way for hours. And I think it comes down to the same thing with bowling, feeling the exact same motion happen, trying to get good at it, trying to become an expert at it. Even though it's simple, being able to try and perfect it is probably something that really grasps me.

And that unsexy, unglamorous art of yours delivered one of the biggest champagne moments for you personally and the history of New Zealand cricket. How fulfilling was the Test series victory in India, the way it played out?

That was unbelievable. To be a part of that series and especially the last game where I basically bowled 20 overs straight in the first innings, and then to be able to bowl with Ajaz [Patel] in tandem the whole way through to winning it, that was a pretty fantastic moment. It doesn't really get much better than that to be fair, to be able to win in India just once is a pretty phenomenal situation for us. Especially as a spinner in western conditions, as opposed to subcontinent conditions.

And even spinners from the Western Hemisphere have really struggled in India. It's still difficult to bowl over there. People think it's easy to go over there and you just spin it and you take wickets. But it's really not that simple. And the way Ashwin and Jadeja always go about it, just makes it look so easy, but it actually is quite hard. So to be a part of that and to take three wickets in that final innings to seal the whitewash, was a pretty phenomenal feeling, and that's definitely up there in my rankings.

It will definitely be a story you tell your grandkids about. But they perhaps wouldn't know the prelude of it. Which is why you were doing the hard yards in those three games in the Plunket Shield in 2023 to stake your claim in red-ball cricket, far away from the razzmatazz of the T20 circuit. In a way, shunning the idea of monetary gains, and actually playing in the Plunket Shield. Take us through how that decision came into being?

Playing Plunket Shield was the reason I managed to get the chance. So I was playing, obviously, a lot of T20 and one day cricket, and to be able to push my case for Tests, I needed to go play some four day cricket that gave me my first chance after the World Cup in the Bangladesh series. And then after that, it sort of carried on moving from there. So to be able to prove that I could bowl in red ball cricket, it was, it was definitely needed.

Those three Plunket Shield games a couple of years ago that were available for me to play as the number one spinner for those games, and to be able to get the time under the belt to show New Zealand cricket that I was able to do that job. and then to go out and Bangladesh and do well. But then also against Aussie and England at home, that was Aussie and South Africa at home, that was, I guess, a sealing moment to know that they can play me as that all rounder role, as opposed to having to pick two proper spinners, that I'm close enough to an all round spinner, rather than having to pick just two out and out spinners.

If you were to have your professor's hat on, how do you dissect fielding as a subject? Some mentioned the key tenets to fielding are anticipation and focus. Paul Collingwood, who was a great fielder of his time, says that you watch the ball right from the moment it left the bowler's hand to the moment the ball is a dead ball, whereas Mark Waugh, one of the better slip catchers of his time, said that he just kept watching the outside edge of the bat, and he would shut off after that. What is your overarching mantra of fielding?

I think I'm somewhere in between the two of them. It depends on where I'm fielding. Obviously, in Test matches, when you're more in the slips region, generally, I'll watch the bat, especially on the angle that I'm on in gully. It's pretty hard to watch the ball and then the bat in that sort of motion, your eyes have to move very fast. I commend all the guys that manage to watch the bowler and then field the ball, but for me, I generally try to watch the batter and use the batter's bodily cues to give me a head start on which way I think the ball is going to go. So anticipation, I think of where it is going to go based on the batter's body movements, it gives you that split second extra, I guess, to make a decision and hopefully get yourself in a body position to make a fielding stop that maybe you wouldn't make otherwise, had you not been watching their body position.

Especially when it comes out to being on the boundary saving twos, that's really crucial to read the batter's body language to whether he's going to play a soft shot to try and run two in the ring, or whether he's going to play a big shot and you need to start backpedalling for a catch. So, I think it was very situational. But I would say for me, watching the batter and the batter's body language is probably the biggest for me.

How has the experience been for playing for Washington Freedom?

Sanjay has been absolutely amazing. We definitely look at some of the other franchises and are very grateful for the way that he goes about things with us. He's taken the team out to dinner on multiple occasions. He really looks after the guys mental health as well by trying to get them out to play golf and organise things for the guys. He also really looks after the families really well. He makes sure that the families that come here are made to feel welcome, made to feel like they're allowed to be a part of the environment. If they're at home and the guys are out training, he'll make sure that there's opportunities for them to go inside and make sure they're looked after. Because he understands that if the players mentality is looked after and the families are looked after, then the players will be more comfortable, and there's always a higher chance of them performing if they're feeling very good. Obviously, it's not always the case.

In our first year where we just missed out on the finals, you can see some owners out there potentially pulling back and not giving as much. But the next year, he gave even more, and the boys obviously won that year. And I think he has the ability to understand what families and what players need and just to keep them happy, and keeping them happy then helps them perform. He is a fantastic guy. He's always around and he treats everyone fantastically.