Everyone awaited a response when Ross Taylor, dropped from the Black Caps Twenty20 side in December, was challenged to prove the selectors wrong in Central Stags green.
It took a while, until the Stags final regular season Super Smash match, but Taylor made his statement with a megaphone against Canterbury Kings, raining down seven sixes on McLean Park on Friday night.
Taylors power-packed 65 off 36 balls led the Stags to 183-6 and a 30-run victory over the Kings, to pip them for second place on net run rate and end the star-studded Knights slim playoff hopes.
Black Caps veteran hits Canterbury bowlers to all parts in Napier.
It means a rematch in Thursdays elimination final at either Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch (depending on which womens team finishes second), for the right to face Wellington Firebirds in next Saturdays decider at the Basin Reserve.
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After three scores of 10 or fewer in four Super Smash innings, it was Taylors time in the partially obscured evening sun. Napier City Council unveiled a novel and seemingly expensive solution to the grounds sunstrike problem, a giant screen hauled up by a crane atop the Chapman Stand which seemed to do the trick.
Officials at McLean Park found a novel solution to the sunstrike issue.
In at 36-2 with the Stags two key men George Worker and Will Young gone, Taylor was two off seven balls and struggling on what he later termed a tricky surface, the setting sun blameless.
Suddenly a switch was flicked as Taylor, 37 next month, shuffled about the crease and began swinging furiously in his favoured arc between square leg and long on.
Internationals Todd Astle and Daryl Mitchell were both clouted over the rope in successive balls and when Will Williams also got the treatment, Taylor had a 25-ball half-century in a flash.
Matt Henry was mortified to drop Taylor at long-on, gifting another six, before Astle got his man floating up a wider legspinner.
The crowd rises to Ross Taylor after his wonderful innings for the Stags against the Kings.
It was a special knock, unlikely to cajole the selectors into recalling him for Australia but enough to stop the pen from striking through his name just yet, in a Twenty20 World Cup year.
Captain Tom Bruce (39 off 25) added the icing, the Stags total above par given the new McLean Park drop-ins havent been the batting paradises of old.
With runs in the bank, the Stags bowled accurately and mixed some dropsies with some brilliant ground fielding to strangle the chase.
The left-arm spin twins finished the job, with Jayden Lennox (3-20) and Ajaz Patel (1-24) combining for a miserly eight overs as none of the Kings power hitters could get going.
Mitchell was dropped twice in his 33 off 28 before Patel snared the vital wicket and the Kings could start plotting for the rematch.
AT A GLANCE
At McLean Park, Napier: Central Stags 183-6 off 20 overs (Ross Taylor 65 off 36, Tom Bruce 39 off 25, Dane Cleaver 33 off 32) beat Canterbury Kings 153-7 off 20 overs (Cam Fletcher 39 not out off 21, Daryl Mitchell 33 off 28; Jayden Lennox 3-20 off 4) by 30 runs.
Stuff MVP points: 3 Ross Taylor, 2 Jayden Lennox, 1 Ajaz Patel.
Points (games played): Wellington Firebirds 32 (9), Stags 24 (10), Kings 24 (10), Knights 16 (9), Auckland Aces 8 (9), Otago Volts 8 (9).
