Matches in a World Cup come so thick and fast that there is hardly any buzz at a venue two days before the game. Two days before this fixture, Australia were only arriving in Dharamsala and then racing to the Bhagsu Nag waterfall for a quick dip. New Zealand had been around for nearly a week so they began training.
Glenn Phillips, who had done the Triund trek with his wife Kate, was the first to break away from fielding practice. He picked up a ball, pitched two stumps on a side pitch in the main ground, got one of the support staff to wear a mitt and keep wicket, and bowled for an hour. No break or batter. Just bowl, bowl, bowl. On a good length, wicket to wicket, always. Towards the end, Tom Latham joined him with wicketkeeping gloves on.
It's a common sight at almost every New Zealand training session. A wicketkeeper batter who doesn't keep much after a back injury, Phillips is obsessed about becoming an allrounder. It is a bit of a strange choice in this era because the field restrictions make life difficult for part-time bowlers, and cricketers have become much more professional: with the amount of cricket increasing, batters tend to look after their bodies and not bowl in the nets to reduce risk of injury.
Phillips has gone to the other extreme. He even changed his domestic team to Otago, where he gets to bowl more. Over in England, he bowled a lot while playing for Gloucestershire. He is so into bowling he is half serious when he gets upset that TV graphics don't classify him as an allrounder.
Phillips has always been like that. If he gets into something, he gets into it properly. He tries to understand it, and then work the hardest he can to get it right. Be it walking in the hills, which also partly explains his move to Otago, archery or bowling. Always used to contributing in more ways than one, Phillips needed to add bowling to his skill set once wicketkeeping became difficult.
And what a good job Phillips has done with the ball in this World Cup in an unforgiving era for part-time bowlers. He has six wickets at an average of 17.16 and economy rate of 4.68. In Dharamsala, though, he went from being a serviceable part-time bowler to a rescuer, registering figures of 10-0-37-3 in the highest-scoring World Cup match of all time, in which runs were scored at 7.71 an over across 100 overs.
Just for a measure of how incredible this performance was, ESPNcricinfo registers Phillips' impact as only slightly behind the bloke who scored 109 off just 67 balls to set Australia up for 388.
Australia were 144 for 0 in 13 overs when Phillips started bowling. While he finished his 10 overs on the trot, again a tribute to bowling fitness built through hours in the nets, the other end conceded 59 runs for no wicket in nine overs.
What Phillips did was what he practised: try to turn the ball hard but more importantly keep it within the stumps. He got the rampaging David Warner and Travis Head with offbreaks that didn't turn, cramping the left-hand batters for room.
None of his team-mates will be surprised at Phillips' success with the ball. "If you came and watched some of our training you'd see that he bowls a lot of overs," Daryl Mitchell said. "That's what GP does. He's a threat across all three aspects of the game, with bat, ball and in the field, and we're very lucky to have him."
Phillips comes across as an intense person. He probably trains the hardest, running fast after every ball, and he was the first to dive on this sub-par Dharamsala outfield in this match, and kept doing it repeatedly. By all accounts, though, he is a fun person to be around, and knows the line between dedication and obsession.
If only the broadcast graphics changed his job description to an allrounder, Phillips might be even more fun to be around.