PERTH – Sometimes he’s brutal. Other times, he’s brutally bad.
Welcome to the world of wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi — the reborn X-factor who has the chance to lead New Zealand to World Cup glory and dent Australia’s title push in the process.
Ronchi has been both a coach’s dream and worst nightmare for much of his career.
Boasting the ability to tear rival attacks apart, Ronchi’s batting talent was undeniable from an early age.
But his inconsistency was a constant source of frustration — even annoyance — for some of his former coaches in Australia.
“He was a beautiful, clean hitter of the ball,” says Wayne Clark, who coached Ronchi for three years at Western Australia.
“There weren’t too many shots he couldn’t play.
“If everything went right, he could win you a game off his own bat without any doubt at all.
“That’s what frustrated you so much. You knew he had the ability, but it just didn’t all fall into place consistently.
“It was just so few and far between that it became a bit annoying.”
Ronchi’s decade-long stint in Australian cricket featured dizzying highs, and dramatic lows.
In 2007, Ronchi cracked the then-fastest domestic one-day century – a 56-ball ton against NSW at the WACA Ground.
A year later, he made his one-day and Twenty20 debuts for Australia. In one match against the West Indies, Ronchi thrashed 64 off just 28 balls.
A bright future beckoned. A Test call-up was even on the cards.
But his form soon plummeted, and by the summer of 2008/09, he was dropped back to grade ranks by then-WA coach Tom Moody.
“I think we messed him around a little bit at WA, especially in one-day cricket,” says long-time Warriors teammate and good friend Adam Voges.
“We mixed a lot between him opening and playing in the middle order.
“He was never settled in one position.
“He was frustrating at times, but on his day he was awesome to watch and one of the cleanest strikers of the ball I’ve ever seen.”
A few rollercoaster years would follow before Ronchi quit Australian cricket in 2012 in a bid to play for his country of birth — NZ.
Ronchi headed across the Tasman with an unenviable record in tow — the most number of ducks (14) in Australian domestic one-day cricket.
His dream of playing for NZ appeared just that — a dream. But by May 2013 he made it a reality — albeit a rocky one.
Ronchi’s second coming on the international scene was hanging by a thread after he opened his Kiwi account with ODI scores of 0, 2, 22, 7, 14, and 2.
