Garth George: Cricketers on threshold of a golden era

The New Zealand cricket team is filled with players in their 20s - so their best could be yet to come - and that's a thought to savour.

Apart from the ones I have already mentioned, the biggest and best Christmas-New Year present I have received is the re-emergence of the New Zealand cricket team as an international force to be reckoned with.

And please note that I refer to the New Zealand cricket team, for no side that has proved itself so competent in the demanding environment of test cricket (up from 8th in the world to 5th) deserves to be known by a piece of headgear.

We must call it the New Zealand team because only then can we all share the thrills and spills of the international Great Game, played on our behalf by XI New Zealanders.

The team's astonishing performances to win the two-test series against Sri Lanka, the first starting on Boxing Day and the second last Saturday simply confirmed our hopes which started to build with our series wins against the West Indies at home, India (here), the Windies again (away) and a draw with Pakistan in the UAE.

And I am convinced that we can look forward to further improvement, for which we have waited two decades and more while we suffered performances from average to hopeless, with the odd win thrown in to keep our interest alive.

For the first time since the late 1980s, we have great strength, and plenty of choice, in our batsmen (a pox on those who insist on calling them batters) and our bowlers.

I am persuaded that we are about to enter a new era of the golden years of the 1970s and 80s given to us by the likes of Hadlee and Chatfield; Turner, Wright and Edgar; Jones; the Cairns, father and son; the Crowe brothers; and Smith behind the stumps.

Today we have Southee and Boult; Latham and Rutherford; McCullum, Williamson and Taylor, Bracewell, Wagner, Craig and Sodhi; Neesham and Anderson; and batsman BJ Watling behind the stumps.

Throughout the past year, captain Brendon McCullum and coach Mike Hesson, aided by batting coach Craig McMillan and bowling coach Shane Bond who themselves have formidable records, have welded together a team which New Zealand Herald cricket writer David Leggatt says "have a range of qualities in their test side but a collective talent for digging deep is among the most significant".

How true that is. McCullum has led from the front, becoming New Zealand's first batsman to score 300 runs in an innings in a test against India at the Basin Reserve last year.

And if any more proof is needed, look at the world record partnership for the sixth wicket of 365 runs between Kane Williamson (242) and BJ Watling (142) to rescue New Zealand from what appeared to be inevitable defeat in the second test last week.

Of Williamson's talent, New Zealand cricketing great, the cancer-stricken Martin Crowe, declared: "We're seeing the dawn of probably our greatest-ever batsman." As the Herald's Andrew Alderson wrote: "It takes one to know one."

Williamson has become the fastest New Zealand batsman to 3000 test runs - in 71 innings, two fewer than previous record-holder, none other than MD Crowe. His average is already 45.96, the best by any New Zealander who has played 20 or more test innings. And he is only 24 years old.

One of the great beauties of our international squad is that so many of them are still in their 20s and thus have many years ahead of them to improve even further their cricketing skills.

That our cricketers are doing their job better than it has been done for decades is already evident in improved attendances.

The crowds at the magnificent Hagley Oval in Christchurch, which hosted its first test, and at the Basin Reserve, were much higher than any we've seen for a long time.

But for the next few months all our attention will be on the 50-over game leading up to the World Cup, which began last Sunday with comfortable but substandard win for us in the first of seven games against Sri Lanka.

Oh well, ODIs are, if you'll pardon me, a whole different ball game.

-garth.george@hotmail.co.nz