 Over the winter he built up his strength and bowled well for his province at the start of 1996/7.A great game for New Zealand A versus England in 1997 earned him a recall to the Test team, and he bowled far better in two Tests than his figures might indicate.He held the record for the longest time taken to score a duck in Test cricket as well as taking a long time to get off the mark, but was dismissed for duck – 77 balls and 101 minutes for New Zealand versus South Africa in 1999.