Jacob Duffy's winning hand

Pocket twos are statistically one of the weakest starting hands in poker. Most players fold them without hesitation. But every once in a while, they hold. And when they do, the win feels outsized. Not because the hand was dominant, but because you stayed in.

He signed a first-class contract with Otago at 17. In his T20 debut season, still in his final year at Southland Boys' High School, he dismissed Kane Williamson and Tim Southee in the same spell. That was in 2012. He went on to represent New Zealand at an Under-19 World Cup and made headlines before he had even fully grown into his body.

The trajectory seemed obvious. He was a prodigy. And then, for a long time, he wasn't. There would be no international debut until 2020, and even then he sat out more matches than he played.

Looking back, Duffy feels that after a couple of good seasons at the domestic level, the better batters had "figured me out". He needed an extra edge. "I probably wasn't bowling as fast as what's required at international level," he explains. "But when I tried to do that, my bowling picked up some bad habits."

"I'm a pretty open sort of guy," Duffy says. "I like to take on a lot of feedback. I've had a lot of different voices over the years. You take the good stuff and some of the not-so-good stuff and give it a go."

A lot of the good stuff came from Rob Walter, who was in charge of Otago at the time, and is now the head coach of New Zealand. What followed were small adjustments to the run-up, a straighter followthrough, conversations that stretched beyond a single net session. The changes felt technical at the time. The lessons proved longer-lasting.

"To go through that whole rehab phase, it was not only good for me at the time, but now I understand my action," Duffy says. "I understand what works, what I need to do to get back to my best, the cues and the body parts that need to be going in the right direction to give me my swing, my seam presentation.

"You don't know what you don't know. Now I feel like I know myself well. I know when things aren't going well, how to get back to my best. I feel like I can find my way."

In between, there were seasons that were good and others that drifted. "It's not like I went away," Duffy is quick to remind. There were international tours as part of extended New Zealand squads, one particularly to the UK in 2015, where the Dukes ball suited his skill set but the established trio of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner stood firmly in front of him. There was the awareness that his own style overlapped too closely with Southee's, except Southee bowled quicker.

"You are where you are," Duffy says. "I enjoy playing for Otago. People say you grind away, but I enjoy cricket. I enjoy playing. When you get the one game here and there, you put a lot of pressure on yourself. You think, I've got to make the most of this. But when you get consecutive games and you know the coach backs you, that's when you start to feel like you belong."

Across formats, his international appearances were scattered across five years. There were games with months in between. There were tours where he travelled but did not play. In many ways, the final phase of his growth happened in Southee's shadow, the man he was often compared to and the man who also became his mentor.

"As soon as I came into the environment, Tim put his arm around me," Duffy says. "He helped me out a lot, made me feel comfortable. He was a great guy to train with and work alongside. I never actually got to play a game with him. Just because of that similarity in our style. And you understand it."

"It was not frustrating, don't know if you can say that," he says. "Domestic cricket in New Zealand is really good. You make a decent living. You get opportunities over the winter to go and play club cricket overseas. I enjoy cricket."

In 2025, Duffy finally received the coveted Test Cap. He claimed 81 wickets across formats at an average of 17.11, eclipsing a 40-year-old New Zealand record held by Richard Hadlee. He rose to No.1 in the ICC Men's T20 rankings for bowlers. He secured an IPL contract with Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Now he is playing in his first senior men's World Cup and about to become a father.

"A big part of it is proving to yourself that you're good enough at international level. I guess it might be grounded in a lot of domestic cricket. Until you get there and do it, you don't quite know if you're good enough. To actually go out there and prove to yourself in a way that you can compete at the international level - not only compete, but have some match-winning influences from time to time. I think that's pretty cool. It's been very enjoyable."

"I'll be honest, with this World Cup and this tour, we're already two months here [in India/Sri Lanka] and my wife is pregnant at home," Duffy says. "It was kind of like, it's going to be four months straight and I'm going to miss the pregnancy. That was probably more to do with the base price and everything. I sort of thought, if I go for that, then she's going to have to do the pregnancy mostly on her own which is not an easy thing to go through. So, I think you're making it worthwhile to go through that sort of sacrifice there."

"I'll play alongside Josh Hazlewood, who I've always admired, so I'm looking forward to getting in his ear and seeing what it's all about, what he's about and how he goes about his work," Duffy says.

"I've seen Virat from the other side and how the local people treat him. It'll be incredible to see what it's actually like from being in his own changing room. It'll be a bizarre experience I'm sure."

"I think you've got to create deception somehow," he says. "Whether it's off the wicket or in the air. But it's knowing when to use it. And the sucky thing is you can absolutely nail it and still get hit out of the park. But I look at it like, what's the worst that can happen? As a bowler in 2026, guys are hitting you for six anyway. You might as well try something new."

Preparation, for him, is a quiet study of context. "Cricket's so different in different parts of the world," he says. "Before (a series in) Bangladesh (last year), I went and watched Mustafizur (Rahman). I look at what the locals are doing in their own conditions. I'm not writing it all down in a book, but I'm watching with interest."

Poker, he says, stays with him long after the cards are put away. "Poker's got some life lessons in there. All you can do is get it in and get it in good. Whatever happens, as soon as you let the ball go, there's nothing you can do."

For a long time, Duffy was the promising teenager who did not quite kick on. Now, at 31, he is among the world's top-ranked T20 bowlers, playing in his first World Cup, and living through what may be the most complete phase of his life.

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