The early history of test cricket runs parallel with the fall of empires and the rise of the modern nation state.

The Indian players walked up and down the Eden Park pitch for today's first test, peering at it as if searching for worms.

Lest it be suggested New Zealand might be getting a touch cosily confident before today's first test against India, Brendon McCullum yesterday made it emphatically clear they're not.

Success at Eden Park and/or the Basin Reserve will be hard earned. There can't be any corner-cutting, writes David Leggat.

The Black Caps will keep an unchanged eleven for tomorrow's first test against India in Auckland. Herald sports experts Andrew Alderson and Wynne Gray come in off the long run up to give their opinion in the chances for both teams.

A repeat pilot impersonator sentenced to 300 hours' community work for flying a plane without a license has had an appeal against his sentence dismissed.

There were laughs in the crowd when Stuart Broad produced with a straight face one of cricket's great understatements.

The focus of the New Zealand cricket team's recent success has rightly been on Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson and the conveyor belt of effective, competitive pace bowlers.

They have nippy fast-medium bowlers who will swing the ball and they can add the clever Zaheer Khan, writes Mark Richardson.

Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor further resuscitated the nations' cricketing pulse in the final one-day international against India.

If there's a lesson to be learned from the NZ-India series, it's to be wary of the hero-to-zero mantra spawned by knee-jerk reactions to success and failure, writes Andrew Alderson.

Ross Taylor's ninth one-day international century has eased New Zealand to an epic one-day series triumph over world champions India...

Today represents the sixth time in just over a year where New Zealand have the chance to seal a one-day international series.

England cricket captain Alastair Cook went home yesterday looking forward to "seeing a few sheep" but with important decisions to make about the future direction of the team.

The Virat Kohli handshake probably gave New Zealand opener Martin Guptill the best gauge of the impact his fifth one-day international century had on India last night.

If the Black Caps were to smash India in this series, the superpower would probably just shrug their shoulders and move on, writes Mark Richardson.