Beware

So now we get to the real cricket.  Any test series with Australia will always be the focal point of a home summer; let’s face it they’re rare; 8 years in fact, but there is a worrying air of some dismissing the South Africa tests.

Cliches are there for a reason, and a South African team in any sport are at their most dangerous when they are written off.  Sure, they have 7 players potentially about to make their test debuts.  But so did the West Indies in their just completed drawn series over the Tasman, and it was their debutants who stole the show.

South Africa remains the only country New Zealand has yet to beat in a test series.  That’s home and away; only India away is the other example of an achievement unobtained.

History is littered with ones that got away.  That train wreck of a tour to the Republic in 1994/5; the first in the post-Apartheid era is a good starter.  NZ became the first side in a hundred years or so to lose a three test series having gone one up.

If ever there has been a good example of tests played between the two nations there is this

https://twitter.com/WIR_DB/status/1070388492264452096

In 2004 New Zealand produced an all round performance to beat South Africa at Eden Par, with Martin, Styris and Cairns to the fore to beat a very good Proteas side.  However the next week at the Basin, Michael Mason’s only test, the home side started poorly, battled away, but were always just behind the match.

The 45 in Cape Town.

That test in Hamilton in 2017 where New Zealand had the visitors on the ropes at the end of day 4, before it rained for 24 hours.  During the tour before that, at the same venue, New Zealand lost 5 wickets for no runs.  Not just any random 5 either; McCullum. Taylore, Williamson. Vettori and D Bracewell.

That would have been only the second home victory over the Republic at that point.

Then there was the last series between the two sides in New Zealand Christchurch a couple of years ago.  The home side smashed them in the first test; an innings and 276 is pretty comprehensive.  Henry took 7/23, Nicholls (remember him?) scored a ton and it really was too easy.

So convincing in fact that the second test seemed like a formality.  And they batted first again; definition of madness! South Africa returned the compliment by 198 runs.  For perspective, the batter who played most responsively, and top scored, in that test was Colin De Grandhomme.  Openers Young and Latham amassed 4 runs across 4 innings between them.

On paper, New Zealand has the stronger side going into this test series at home.  But recent events have shown us that being at home doesn’t guarantee everything, playing against a young team doesn’t mean everything, and we know when the Proteas are at their most dangerous.