Adam Parore: Farewell dreadful Zimbabwe, now for a real challenge

The less said about Zimbabwe the better although I can't let their dreadful tour end without a few comments.

They are the worst side to tour this country, below even the poor Bangladesh outfits of the past five years. A lot of what we saw was no better than club cricket.

The really disappointing thing, from the Zimbabwe point of view, was the substandard fielding, because this is the one area of the game where teams are in total control of their own standards and not affected by the quality of opposition.

New Zealand is on a roll after the victory over Australia in Tasmania, but nobody truly wins in such lopsided contests as the ones we've just witnessed. It is a sad state of affairs when a team can win 50 over games by a couple of hundred runs. Zimbabwe have got a lot to be despondent about.

Thankfully, there is something special to look forward to with the South Africans arriving over the weekend. Their tour should provide plenty of terrific contests - the mainly drab Zimbabwe disaster can be quickly forgotten.

Historically, we have struggled against the South Africans, and while I don't have all the answers as to why there are a couple of theories. The Proteas are very well drilled and ruthless against anything ordinary at test level. I think this stems from them having had a quality domestic competition for many years. Africa is a tough place, and it produces hard-headed cricketers.

Their bowling attack usually has real pace to it which is something New Zealand tends to struggle against because we are brought up on slower wickets and this country does not produce a lot of genuine quicks.

On paper, South Africa deserve to start as mild favourites in the test and one day games but if Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder are fit then we are in with a definite shout.

Jacques Kallis is one of the greatest players in test history and I'm also looking forward to watching players like AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla go in to battle against our best.

The exciting bottom line is this: let the real cricket begin.