Glenn Phillips' spin-hitting Scooby Doos Afghanistan

Sometimes being 14 for 2 is Plan A.

In front of 21,360 fans who have had a lot of practice cheering for wickets to fall so the No. 4 batter can come out, Glenn Phillips walked in and got straight to work.

New Zealand's history suggests they had only a one in 10's chance of chasing down the target in front of them. One-eighty-plus chases aren't really their thing. One-eighty-plus chases aren't really a Chennai thing either.

This was something of a crisis. Phillips has made that his thing. Still the way he took on Rashid Khan and Mujeeb Ur Rahman was startling. When the game ended with 2.1 overs to spare, Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott, whose team had picked up two wickets in two balls in the second over, was grumbling about their powerplay performance.

It was like the end of one of those Scooby Doo cartoons. We would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling kid that solved mystery spin.

Fifteen of the first 18 balls Phillips faced were from Mujeeb and Rashid. Five were sent to the boundary.

"Look, that's one thing in New Zealand we don't have other than Ish [Sodhi]. But, you know, he's in our team," Tim Seifert, who also helped drag New Zealand out of the hole with 65 off 42, said when asked about the challenge of facing unorthodox slow bowlers. "So, domestically, you don't face that much. So, yeah, that's that opportunity of playing around the world and coming up against all these finger spinners, which is a great opportunity to learn.

"But, yeah, I think it's just having a method, whatever that method may be. It might be different for different batters. But it's just making sure you stick to that."

Phillips' method looked simple. He saw stuff that was overpitched and took advantage. Some were even off target, angled down the leg side. It is a batter's job - like their one job - to put these away. But there are enough examples of scoreboard pressure complicating things. New Zealand had historical pressure on them as well. This was the re-match from 2024 T20 World Cup, which when they lost, effectively got them booted out of the tournament.

In the face of all of this, and up against the leading wicket-taker in the shortest format, having the clarity to do the basics right and the confidence to do them well is the difference between winning and losing. Phillips was in the perfect frame of mind to do so. An injury reduced his participation during New Zealand's recent home season.

"I spent a lot of time at home, got my pilot's licence, got fit and strong and also was able to work on the game a little bit," he said. "And sometimes it's a little bit of a blessing in disguise to be able to have that sort of time to, I guess, go and look at things and understand how you want to be going forward and then to be able to come out here back with the guys. you know, it's a great team environment to be in and to give to something bigger than yourself."

Phillips just pressing forward to the pitch of the ball and clattering it down the ground or sweeping it past short fine or just nudging it off the square - all of it started to add up and New Zealand were suddenly 87 for 2 after nine overs. Afghanistan could certainly have bowled better. There was a feeling that maybe Mujeeb was trying too much; going for the magic delivery spinning from leg to off, and that Rashid was struggling to get the zip off the pitch that makes him so dangerous, or perhaps he wasn't even looking to do so since he kept floating it up over and over.

Handing a couple of game-changers - one of whom was actually in the middle of his game-changing spell - their joint second-most and joint-third most expensive spells in T20 World Cups is the kind of win any batter would love to have on their highlight reel.

Phillips' is already chock-a-block. He can be a blur on the field, captured only by a camera lens. He can break convention but when he explains why he did it, it almost seems matter-of-fact. Now it seems he wants to add high-quality spin-hitting to that list. He's been shackled to T20 benches before because of that drawback in his game. On Sunday, he just let loose.