Cricket: Black Caps hitter Glenn Phillips shows real courage in cameo against West Indies

Black Caps hitter Glenn Phillips may not appear to have played a major role in the series-opening T20 win over the West Indies, but the guts and glory displayed in his brief innings certainly had an impact.

Coming to the fold with the Black Caps’ 180 chase faltering at 34/2 after nearly four overs, Phillips proceeded to shift innings to another gear and nearly got seriously injured in the process.

Facing wily left-arm spinner Fabian Allen, Phillips calmly defended the first innings of his innings before tossing the ball over the deep square back for six.

Two balls later, Phillips again made a dent in Allen’s offer with the ball, this time walking down the field to send it into the stands for a long time, but he let out a mighty scream in the process and fell to the ground.

Black Caps physical therapist Tommy Simsek ran to the ground to tend to Phillips, who turned out to have dislocated his knee during his charge through the gate.

Fortunately, in an act of true courage, Phillips managed to get his knee in place and all Simsek had to do was apply some bandages to increase his confidence in his position.

The treatment worked. The next installment saw Phillips stay deep in his crease and swing Allen high over deep center for his third six in four installments.

Phillips added a fine short stretch of last four to complete Allen’s 22-run lap and the Black Caps chase suddenly got back on track.

Although Phillips lost his wicket in the next over, his impact was lasting as he showed fellow blaster master Jimmy Neesham (48 of 24 balls) the way as he led his team to five wicket victory.

The Black Caps can also breathe a sigh of relief that the sudden injury doesn’t seem serious, the side indicating in a tweet that the star hitter’s knee should be fine for the rest of the T20 series.

Game 2 of the T20 series takes place Sunday at 2pm at Mount Maunganui.