Mountain top
The eight-wicket win over India in the World Test Championship (WTC) final in England in 2021 has to rank alongside the incredible test series win in India recently.
Sweeping India 3-0 had never been done before, but the World Test Championship brought a lot of prestige and was the culmination of two years’ work.
Perhaps you can only separate the two achievements by a boundary countback.
Two years earlier, that very method had robbed New Zealand of a shared World Cup. That stung. And it looked like a world title might elude New Zealand’s golden generation of cricketers.
They went into the WTC final as the underdogs. But they had a top five all averaging more than 40 — two of them averaged more than 50 — and a four-pronged pace attack which had more than 800 wickets between them.
They also found familiar conditions waiting for them at The Rose Bowl in Southampton.
Towering seamer Kyle Jamieson took five for 31 to help dismiss India for 217. Devon Conway (53 from 153 balls) and Kane Williamson (49 from 177) battled hard to eke out a small lead.
Tim Southee (four for 48) and Trent Boult (three for 39) combined to help knock over India for 170 in their second innings.
Ross Taylor (47 not out) and Kane Williamson (52 not out) put on an unbroken stand of 96 for the third wicket to steer the Black Caps to glory.
Richard Hadlee bowls during his pomp in the mid 1980s. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Hadlee
It takes more than one man to beat Australia in a test series on their turf — unless that man is Sir Richard Hadlee. The right-armer produced arguably the greatest spell of fast bowling in the history of the game when he took nine for 52 at the Gabba in 1985 to set up a 41-run win.
Martin Crowe (188) and John Reid (108) played a major role in that match as well, to be fair.
But Sir Richard nabbed six for 71 in the second innings and took 33 wickets at an average of 12.15 in the three-game series.
New Zealand won the series 2-1. It is their only series win across the Tasman.
Victory at last
Relief does not come close to summing it up.
New Zealand went 26 years and lost 22 tests in 44 attempts before finally breaking through with a historic 190-run win over the West Indies in Auckland in 1956.
The Windies had posted three comfortable wins and with stars such as Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Everton Weekes, who was in sizzling form on the tour, a clean sweep seemed the most likely outcome.
New Zealand had slumped to 87 for four but captain John Reid countered with an aggressive knock of 84 to help the home side post 255.
New Zealand declared their second innings at 157 for nine, setting the Windies 268 for victory.
Cave took another four wickets to help skittle the Windies for 77, and Otago’s Jack Alabaster got the key wicket of Weekes for 31. Weekes had plundered 418 runs at an average of 83 in the four tests.
Goodbye
Otago and New Zealand left- arm spinner Stephen Boock still has the stump Michael Holding kicked out of the ground in frustration.
He scampered through for a leg bye to clinch a dramatic one-wicket win over the fearsome West Indies side at Carisbrook in 1980.
Holding had kicked it out of the ground when his appeal for caught behind off John Parker was turned down.
That bye won New Zealand the series.
The West Indies were practically unbeatable in the 1980s. They did not lose another test series until 1994-95.
