Will Young makes ODI World Cup case but won't be 'looking over the shoulder'

This should make him a lock-in for next year's World Cup in southern Africa, but things aren't quite so simple given New Zealand have been resting and rotating their players from 50-overs cricket while balancing their priorities across the three formats. It isn't quite clear just yet, then, what the shape of their World Cup top three might look like.

Young made a great case for himself on Friday, scoring a brilliant 108-ball 125 in the fourth ODI against India in Mount Maunganui, but he's aware of the competition he faces. Other contenders for top-three slots include Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra, who offer the same sort of solidity and cross-format class that Young does, as well as the T20 basher Tim Seifert, who is opening the innings for the first time in his ODI career in this series against India, and on Friday gave New Zealand their early impetus with a 48-ball 58, his first half-century in the format. New Zealand are also trialling Finn Allen in the middle order, and a move back to the top of the order for him cannot be ruled out.

"The best thing about this team is it's all about contributing to the team success rather than worrying about your own game and looking over your shoulder as to who else is doing well, but you're right, it is an important series and there's a couple more series as well leading up to the World Cup that are important to try to stake your claim to make that squad. But the most important thing I think is being a good team man and trying to contribute in different ways towards the team success that will get you on that plane."

Young's innings on Friday did not begin promisingly. He nicked Auqib Nabi twice in successive balls when on 5, only for Rohit Sharma at first slip and then Ishan Kishan behind the wicket to put him down. Had either catch been taken, he would have been out for another single-digit score to follow 9 and 6 in his two previous matches in this series.

"The first time I was quite frustrated at myself, because it was a similar way that I got out in the second ODI, but then after the second one happened, the very next ball, I just had to laugh it off and yeah, I did, that's exactly what I did," Young said. "I laughed it off and just tried to concentrate on the next ball as if it was any other ball."

"I think you've got to remember that cricket is a team sport and thankfully Seifert was seeing it like a beach ball at the other end and I could sort of just ride along with the momentum that he'd created," Young said. "Then after a while, I managed to find my timing as well and created some meaningful partnerships throughout the innings, so that was great."

A feature of Young's innings was his use of the sweep and its variants to unsettle India's spinners. In all, he scored 19 runs off 11 balls with different kinds of sweep. It echoed his use of those shots during his Player-of-the-Series performance when New Zealand completed a historic 3-0 sweep of their Test series in India back in 2024-25.

"I didn't always sweep," Young said. "Growing up in New Zealand, the sweep isn't a shot you really need. It doesn't turn as much here, it's normally the bounce that can get you stuck, but thankfully over my cricketing career I've travelled to India and other parts of the subcontinent and have had the chance to grow my game and learn.

Young said that series win in India had reinforced all the batters' beliefs in their methods against spin.

"I think that series was really good for the whole group, and [we gained] confidence from that in various ways," he said. "I think before we went to India for that Test series we lost against Sri Lanka 2-0, and we managed to sort of to double down on what we were thinking, to have a plan against each bowler and back yourself to express yourself and to take the positive option.

"So it's nice in a way to have that challenge of facing world-class bowlers, but this time it's different, it's in New Zealand, so the conditions are slightly different. Yesterday wind was a massive factor, which isn't always the case in India, so yeah, it's nice to be in the set-up long enough now for batters to get a feel for what a bowler brings, and then depending on what conditions you face on the day you can bring out those skills."