New Zealand still as dangerous despite the absence of big three | Cricbuzz.com – Cricbuzz – Cricbuzz

SOUTH AFRICA TOUR OF NEW ZEALAND, 2022

Taylor (retirement), Williamson (injury) and Boult (birth of child) are unavailable for the for the first Test but South Africa will be well advised to not take New Zealand lightly Getty

Two New Zealanders walk into a bar. One sits down at a table near the door, and says to the other, "Get us a beer, will ya?" The other replies, "Mate, your legs aren't painted on." Translation: what makes you so special that you don't have to walk to the counter to order your own drinks?

Kiwis seem to be born with an innate sense of equality. We're all the same, mate. No-one is better than anyone else, and we'll bloody-well make sure they know it. No-one is spared. Martin Crowe, for instance, was a victim of "tall poppy syndrome", which demanded that prominent figures be taken down a peg or two. That happened because, along with his specialness as a cricketer, Crowe was unusually and unapologetically unorthodox in his way of being part of the wider world. Can't have that, mate. The corrective action involved slurring Crowe with the term used by New Zealanders who don't live in the country's biggest city to denigrate those who do: "Jafa". It stands for "just another f*****g Aucklander".

Happily, this unhealthy tendency has diminished. New Zealanders seem to have come round to the idea that while stars shouldn't be polished beyond their deserved lustre, they should be allowed to shine their natural brightest without being cynically tarnished. Recalcitrants will be tested during the Test series against South Africa in Christchurch, which starts on Thursday. Because Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson and Trent Boult, the supernova stars of this generation of New Zealand's players, will not be in the XI. Taylor has retired, Williamson is nursing a chronic elbow injury, and Boult is about to become a father and will miss the first of the two matches.

Since Taylor, the senior among those three, made his debut in November 2007, he and Williamson have scored more than a quarter of their team's total runs. Williamson's 7,272 and Taylor's 7,046 allow them to tower over the third name on the list, Brendon McCullum, who made almost three-quarters of his career aggregate of 6,453 once Taylor's career had begun. Taylor and Williamson are, in that order, New Zealand's all-time highest run-scorers. New Zealand haven't played a Test without both of them since January 2008. That's 117 Tests ago, of which Taylor has featured in 110 and Williamson in 86.

No New Zealander has taken more wickets than Boult's 301 - more than a fifth of the Kiwis' total during his career - since he made his debut in December 2011. Boult is behind Richard Hadlee, Daniel Vettori and Tim Southee on New Zealand's all-time list of wicket-takers, but he has bowled between 11,963 and 2,137 fewer deliveries than them. Remarkably for a fast bowler, Boult has missed only 11 of the 86 Tests New Zealand have played since he earned his first cap.

New Zealand have won 44 and lost 41 of Taylor's Tests. Those figures become 37 and 28 for Williamson and 38 and 23 for Boult. But it's as part of a united force that the three players' worth is most apparent: the Kiwis have won 35 and lost 17 of the 64 matches in which their XI has been studded with Taylor, Williamson and Boult. That's a winning percentage of 54.69. Before the Taylor-Williamson-Boult era, New Zealand won just 18.76% of their Tests. In before and after terms, they are 36.02% more successful when the trio have been in action compared to previously. Pertinently, they featured in seven of the nine victories New Zealand earned in the 16 matches they have played in the World Test Championship (WTC). With weird symmetry, Taylor and Williamson are both sixth on the list of run-scorers worldwide measured from their debuts, and Boult is sixth among the wicket-takers.

Whichever way you spin the numbers, the three Kiwis are giants of the modern game. But New Zealand are hardly pushovers when those players don't make their presence felt more strongly than their teammates. That much was made plain during the inaugural WTC final in Southampton in June last year. Boult was tight but not especially successful in taking 2/47 in India's first innings of 217, in which Kyle Jamieson claimed 5/31. Williamson and Taylor made 49 and 11 in their side's reply of 249, which was led by Devon Conway's 54. Boult took 3/39 in the second innings, but Southee banked 4/48. Even so, Williamson and Taylor did show their class in chasing down the target of 139 with an unbroken stand of 96. Williamson made 52 not out and Taylor was unbeaten on 47.

So the South Africans would be well advised not to expect a lesser examination on Thursday (February 17). By the sound of bowling coach Charl Langeveldt's rumination on Hagley Oval's famously green and grassy pitch, the visitors are indeed wise to the subtleties of the challenge ahead of them: "It can be misleading. That's how New Zealand wickets are. It looks green, and probably with the new ball it will swing and seam. But it gets easier once the ball gets old. We spoke long and hard about it when we got here. The discussion was about getting used to the overcast conditions, too. When the sun is out, it's easier [to bat] - the ball doesn't swing and nip, the colour of the grass changes. But we will focus on bowling fuller. We need to make them play with the new ball. It's all about being adaptable."

Even the fact that Tom Latham has presided over only three wins in his six Tests as Williamson's understudy as captain shouldn't be taken as an obvious chink in the home side's armour. In January, six days after Latham had scored one and 14 in Bangladesh's shock eight-wicket win in Mount Maunganui, he led his team to victory by an innings at Hagley Oval, his home ground. Latham made 252, his sixth century and second double hundred in his last 39 Test innings. Clearly, his legs aren't painted on.

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