Cleared for takeoff: The many altitudes of Glenn Phillips

But last September, when nursing a groin injury, he finally realised the dream. He said with a glee on Sunday: “Sometimes, it (the injury) is a little bit of a blessing in disguise. I got my pilot’s licence (during the time),” he said. The process was tough. He had to pass a minimum of 50 flying hours (he completed 80), pass six multi-choice theory exams and furnish a medical certificate. “I studied probably 12 hours a day to get them all done as fast as I could,” he told The Post.

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When not playing cricket, he is often spotted zipping a Cessna 172 over Dunedin, where he stays with his wife. He has once flown to Christchurch and over Mount Cook. “It’s just the thought of being in control of something large and powerful, and the lives of everyone onboard are in your hands,” Phillips once explained.

On the field, he transforms into an aircraft himself, snaffling anything in his reach with spidery limbs. He doesn’t have long, lissome arms like Jonty Rhodes, or the feline elasticity of Ricky Ponting. His movements are not of smooth curves, but of a ferocious, dynamic beauty. He is stocky and muscled, but is light on his feet and extremely quick. Not too tall, a low centre of gravity facilitates the quick lunges. Almost every catch he plucks is spectacular, or it could be that he has plucked numerous worldies that only those stick in the mind. In the Champions Trophy, he flung to his right, in a blur of fast-twitch movements, to catch Virat Kohli’s full-bloodied drive. Kohli stood stunned.

Batsmen could merely curse their luck if Glenn Phillips is prowling on the field. (PHOTO: AP)

Batsmen could merely curse their luck if Phillips is prowling on the field. He can field anywhere, run as fast as anyone, competently keep the wickets, has a powerful fling from the deep, can bowl canny off-spin, adequate enough to conspire a series win over India, and certainly reel off hundreds in less than 50 balls. The only crack in his repertoire is perhaps that he doesn’t affect as many run-outs as a gun-fielder like him would.

The background had its bearing. His parents played competitive hockey in South Africa, the country of his birth. His grandfather played club football. “In the garden, we had a big 16-foot trampoline, and we always played like football goalkeeping stuff on it, and we’d play like little cricket games on it. That probably had a huge impact on learning how to dive and being in a safe environment where you weren’t going to get injured,” he said.

Gymnastics background benefitted, too. “Learning to tuck and roll, dive properly, land properly,” he would say. Typical of those from New Zealand and South Africa, he had a multi-sports background. He played hockey and football, did sprints (later, he would adopt a sprinter’s starting position at the non-striker’s end). He studies fielding studiously, watching AFL and baseball. In the nets, he often throws with his left hand. Sometimes, he bats left-handed, too. “I train batting left-handed for two reasons,” he said. “One to keep both hands and both sides of the brain working, but also to be able to counteract left arm-spin.”

These days, he has started practising archery. The lesson he has taken to cricket: “Archery is a real process-driven sport where if you focus on trying to hit the target, it often doesn’t really work.” Golf, he said, gives him patience and precision, for the one clinical swing that he could recreate in cricket.

The multidimensionality had a flipside, though. He is not considered a serious cricketer yet, a jack-of-many-trades curiosity. The numbers plead for a change in perception. With the bat, he averages 42.06 in ODIs and 31.57 in T20Is. He aggregates 31 with his off-spin in Tests. He takes nerve-snapping catches. And this recreational pilot can take off his team’s World Cup dreams and land them in the promised land.