In a word, it's all about length. Tim Southee marks that as the reason for the success of his new ball double act with Trent Boult.
Both are swing bowlers and recognise they need to give the ball time to wobble in the air. They've had an outstanding series against the West Indies and, as Northern Districts teammates and friends, are happy bouncing off each other.
"We've played a lot of cricket together and we seem to be getting better and better as an opening bowling combination," Southee said yesterday. "Trent bowled fantastically well throughout the series and we complement each other well with the left-arm, right-arm.
"It's the lengths that we bowl - we're both swing bowlers and tend to bowl that touch fuller and on [these] wickets ... it's been very rewarding."
Indeed one of the starker differences between the two teams in the test series was the length the opposing new ball bowlers used. The West Indies completely misread the favourable seam bowling conditions in the first two tests, having sent New Zealand in - or they weren't good enough to take advantage of them. By contrast, Southee and Boult barely missed a trick.
