Captains Joe Root and Kane Williamson with the LV Test series Trophy. Photosport
Captains Joe Root and Kane Williamson with the LV Test series Trophy. Photosport
When Mike Hesson, New Zealand's head coach, knocked on Brendon McCullum's hotel room door in Cape Town in January 2013, the captain admits he was "trying to find some answers at the bottom of the bottle".
Earlier that day, New Zealand had been bowled out for 45 in fewer than 20 overs on the first morning of McCullum's reign as Test captain.
That nadir - "rock bottom," McCullum calls it - came amid a tumultuous era for New Zealand cricket, marked by controversial changes in coaching and captaincy. These had created an environment of insecurity and fear.
A few minutes after Hesson arrived at McCullum's room, Bob Carter, the assistant coach, and Mike Sandle, the team manager, joined him. Each had just spontaneously wanted to check in on the captain. But it created an opportunity to discuss what New Zealand cricket had become. The conclusion was unambiguous.
"We spoke about how we were perceived - the word arrogance came up," Sandle recalls.
The greatest problem, the quartet agreed, was of culture.
"There was a real self-preservation mode - players were basically just looking to do enough to stay in the team," Hesson says.
"It was a line in the sand where we said, 'Look, you're either going to go down this path and play in the best interests of the team, or we're going to have to find it with other people'.
"Out of this desperation, and acceptance of their plight, came a determination to find a better way. "One of the things we discussed is that we just wanted to be strong representations of our people," McCullum recalls.
Members of the Black Caps players carry the chairs from the team photograph back to the pavilion at Lord's. Photosport
"Our people are humble, we're hard-working, we can handle failure, but we just want to be known to be hard to beat. We want to know that if a team play against us, if they beat us they know they've been in a scrap."
At the core of New Zealand's new approach was to embrace their limitations. With the smallest population of any Test-playing nation, most leading athletes gravitating to rugby and a minuscule budget compared to the sport's heavyweights - less than Surrey, indeed - New Zealand would always have a small playing pool. They had to maximise every iota of what they had.
"Financially and player number-wise and everything else, we are a lot smaller than other nations," Sandle says.
"We decided money can't be an excuse. It's really a lot of the things that we can control will cost no money, and that's through fitness, working hard, attitude, giving to the team, buying in to what the team needs - it doesn't cost a cent."
Along these tenets New Zealand embraced a new commitment to continuity of selection. It is a process made easier by head coaches, beginning with Hesson, being empowered to be chief selector.
"In many instances the best thing to do is nothing," Hesson says.
"If you've actually spent all that time picking someone in the first place and you've done your job properly, you've got to give them a decent run - otherwise you shouldn't have picked them in the first place."
A combination of a more welcoming culture and McCullum's leadership helped New Zealand reach the 2015 World Cup final, when they played buccaneering cricket. At the same time, they went on a national record run of seven undefeated Test series.
It was tempting to think the glories of the McCullum era were those of an unusually fine generation of players, galvanised by inventive captaincy and a home World Cup. Yet the success of the five years since his international retirement, with Kane Williamson and his more calculating style as captain, suggest something more impressive: that New Zealand have developed a robust system that can endure the loss of even the most important individuals.
McCullum and Hesson, the captain-coach pair at the heart of the resurgence, left long ago, yet the team's rise has continued. They have won nine of their past 11 Test series to seal a spot in the World Test Championship final against India, having topped the rankings for the first time in January. They have also climbed to No 1 in the ODI rankings and No 3 in the T20I rankings.
Such success points to the durability of a structure. New Zealand have a well-deserved reputation as the best-run board in the sport.
This can be seen in the mature attitude to overseas T20 leagues - avoiding the club v country rows that have engulfed the West Indies and South Africa - and maintaining a concentrated, high-quality domestic programme while avoiding splurging money trying to build their own mini-Indian Premier League.
Following a player strike in 2002, New Zealand Cricket introduced full-time contracts for domestic players, improving the quality of its competitions and the national depth. The quality of training facilities in New Zealand is continually improving, too. A new marquee cover and climate control system which opened at the High Performance Centre in Lincoln, near Christchurch, in 2018 enables players to train outdoors 12 months a year for the first time.
In the professional age, New Zealand have retained a sense of common purpose. As with New Zealand Rugby, there is a clear hierarchy between the domestic and international game. The vibrant A-team programme, which New Zealand Cricket funded by reducing the domestic first-class programme in 2018, has helped incoming players such as Kyle Jamieson thrive from their first ball at international level.
Even in great New Zealand teams, such as the Eighties vintage who beat England and Australia away, there was a hint of the XI needing to be filled out. Now, New Zealand have more depth than ever.
Five of the current side - Williamson, Ross Taylor, BJ Watling, Tim Southee and Trent Boult, who will miss this series - have strong claims to being in New Zealand's all-time Test XI.
New Zealand's rise represents the culmination of a magnificent journey, forged out of the debris of Cape Town. But in a deeper sense it represents the culmination of a 91-year journey since they played their first Test.
