Born in New Zealand to a rugby-playing father, before emigrating overseas for their formative years. A combative middle-order batter, bustling seam bowler, and outstanding fielder. A player considered by his team as a man for the big moments, who thrives under the pressure of a packed crowd and a big occasion.
The description fits two players involved in the Crowe-Thorpe Trophy decider at Trent Bridge. But for all that Sunday threatened to turn into the Ben Stokes show, it was Daryl Mitchell who seized control of the third Test with hundred that was brave, belligerent and bruising - in the literal sense - and set up a memorable series win.
Mitchell played the pantomime villain in Nottingham, jeered and taunted by a crowd who had come for one thing and got another altogether. He was peppered by England's fast bowlers on a pitch that deteriorated quickly, but played the situation perfectly. "He's someone that, when you need him in moments like that, he tends to deliver," Tom Latham, his captain, said.
His partnership with Rachin Ravindra, worth 129, dug New Zealand out of a hole. They were 51 for 3 on the third evening when Mitchell walked in, leading by 135; by the time Ravindra was trapped lbw by Shoaib Bashir just before lunch the following morning, New Zealand had regained control of a game threatening to drift away from them.
Test cricket is a game of three currencies: runs, wickets, and time. The third is often undervalued in the no-draw era, but Mitchell was highly conscious of it. He wanted to keep England in the field as long as possible; to ensure New Zealand's bowlers would be relatively fresh into the final day; and to give the pitch as much chance to deteriorate as possible.
He took 170 balls to reach 50, the slowest half-century by a New Zealander since a BJ Watling blockathon in late 2019. It may sound dull, but these are the types of innings that bowlers remember: Jofra Archer recently told the Super Over podcast that Watling was the toughest batter he had ever bowled to in Tests, based solely on that 2019-20 series.
Mitchell reached 63 off 210 by tea on day three, by which point the crowd had become impatient. His innings was delaying the latest episode of Stokes' psychodrama, and they taunted him with chants of "boring, boring Mitchell". But with the tail for company, he put his foot down, cracking 37 off his last 31 balls to reach three figures.
Coming off 241 balls, Mitchell's century was 22 balls slower than any hundred scored by an England batter in the Stokes-McCullum era. It epitomised everything that England have spent the last four years rebelling against; only now have they started to realise just how much they could use a tenacious, determined player like him.
He roared in celebration as he nudged Atkinson into the leg-side via an apt combination of pad, glove and inside-edge, veins throbbing as he grinned towards his team-mates on the dressing-room balcony. Only a couple of England players applauded and, while many in the stands stood to acknowledge Mitchell's landmarks, others repeated the same chant again.
Mitchell loved it. Of course he did: he knew that he had played his role to perfection, setting up a series-deciding win. "The boring, boring Mitchell stuff, that was cool," he beamed. "I really enjoyed that. It's something that a little teenage Daryl would have been frothing over: the Barmy Army singing my own name. I loved it."
Mitchell almost always bats out of his crease, and occasionally shuffles even further down the pitch. It is a move designed to reduce the possible modes of dismissal: there is less time for the ball to deviate before reaching him, and he can only be lbw to very full balls, as shown when he successfully overturned an lbw decision facing Archer on the fourth morning.
It is also inherently alpha. Batters have less than half a second to react when facing Test-level fast bowling and Mitchell voluntarily shaves off a fraction of that. He was struck 17 times in all - on the gloves, on his right elbow, on his left forearm, on his back, in the helmet - but shrugged each blow off after some magic spray and a couple of painkillers. He is hard as nails.
Take the first over he faced. Mitchell took guard outside his crease, then shimmied down further as Gus Atkinson ran in. He ducked into a short ball, wearing it on the left shoulder, then re-marked his guard and prodded the pitch as though nothing had happened. Four balls later, he shouldered arms to another lifter, and let the ball thud into his ribcage.
His battle with Stokes - 68 balls, 22 runs - was an epic, particularly on the fourth morning. In the space of three overs, Stokes struck Mitchell on the forearm, glove, and elbow, locating a hairline crack in the pitch outside his off stump and getting the ball to rear up sharply. They exchanged a few words at the end of overs, but the mutual respect was obvious; it felt somehow fitting that it was Mitchell who took the catch at mid-on that ended Stokes' England career.
Mitchell is the type of player to wear his bruises with pride. "It's never nice wearing a few on the body, but it's also part of the job, and what we've signed up for," he told Sky Sports with a smile on Monday morning. "As a kid in the backyard, you're dreaming of playing Test matches and being in situations like that. That was the fun part about it, getting stuck into that moment."
This was Mitchell's fourth Test hundred in England, where he now averages over 70. The first three came four years ago, when he piled on 538 runs in the series but could not prevent a 3-0 defeat as 'Bazball' was spawned with a series of edge-of-the-seat run-chases. For all the distraction that Stokes provided, his innings on Sunday gave it a slow death.
Back in 2022, England looked at Mitchell's contributions sniffily: yes, he had piled on the runs, but they saw his scoring rate - a run every two balls - as a reflection of a selfish player. This time, Brendon McCullum had no choice but to concede: "Their approach was perfect… If we were in that situation, I would hope that we would be able to replicate that same style."
Far from 'boring, boring Mitchell', this was an utterly compelling innings whose value was immediately underlined by England's decision to go down in flames when they batted. His over-my-dead-body resistance may not have emptied the bars at Trent Bridge, but it was Mitchell celebrating a famous win with a beer on Monday evening.