Garth George: I'm bowled over - NZ cricket's back

MAC ATTACK: Some great test displays by Brendon McCullum and his boys have restored faith in the New Zealand team - just don't call them the Black Caps. PHOTO/FILE

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.

And please note that I refer to the New Zealand team, for no side that has proved so competent in test cricket (up from eighth in the world to fifth) 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 we can expect 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 batsmen (a pox on those who call them batters) and bowlers.

I am persuaded 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 centurion 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 more proof is needed, look at the world-record sixth-wicket partnership of 365 runs between Kane Williamson (242) and BJ Watling (142) to rescue New Zealand from what appeared certain second-test defeat this week.

Of Williamson's talent, New Zealand cricketing great, the cancer-stricken Martin Crowe, declared this week: "We're seeing the dawn of probably our greatest-ever batsman."

As the NZ 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 Martin 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, beginning with seven games against Sri Lanka.

Let's hope we do as well in that format which, if you'll pardon me, is a whole different ball game.

-garth.george@hotmail.co.nz

-Garth George is a veteran newspaper journalist, retired and living in Rotorua.