Youthful New Zealand hold aces over ageing South Africa

So this is what it feels like to be the Springboks and the All Blacks. Sort of.

New Zealand’s cricketers are not quite the out and out favourites their rugby counterparts are. No matter who they are playing, they hold the advantage going into this series.

They have never been ranked higher than South Africa, but as of Wednesday afternoon, sit two places above them. Eyeing a first series win over South Africa is not merely fanciful. By the end of this month, it could become reality. Who would have thought?

When these fixtures were announced on November 3, 2015, they did not promise anything particularly eye-catching. South Arica were still ranked No.1. Hashim Amla was still Test captain. There was still hope that the busiest summer South Africa have had in years would also be their most successful. New Zealand were, well, only New Zealand. Languishing in the mid-table. Beaten inside four days and by an innings in both Tests the last time they visited South Africa. Being crushed by Australia at the time these matches were announced.

The alarm bells that should have sounded in South African minds were mute. They did not ring with news that New Zealand had gone for two-and-a-half years before that unbeaten, that they had home wins over India and Sri Lanka, an away win in the West Indies and a draw with Pakistan in the UAE. They also did not bring out the truth that Test cricket has never been played in South Africa in August, and that a team notorious for starting slow may not want to experiment with fixtures at a time when conditions could make home advantage a moot point. It was only New Zealand. Only.

“They are a happy team,” Russell Domingo said of them, with a heaviness to the words that almost added, “once, we were happy too.” In essence, that, more than recent results is the difference between New Zealand and South Africa now. Having spent the last three weeks watching them in Zimbabwe, I was struck by how much they reminded me of Graeme Smith’s South African team at their peak.

This New Zealand squad all speak the same language, literally. Close your eyes at a press conference and you will think they have sent the same person every day. That person talks about patience, which sounds quite similar to the Smith team’s focus on processes. That person talks about concentrating on their own game and not getting caught up in what the opposition is doing or saying which is exactly how Smith’s men rose to the top. That person talks about continually improving, not merely climbing a ladder …

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