New Zealand are more than a product of McCullum

"Brendon's written the rule book, and they've jumped on board."

"It's a team that Brendon has built in Brendon's shape."

"They play the way Brendon does."

"It's Brendon's team."

"Brendon is the boss, leads the way, and they all play like he does."

It all sounds narcissistic. It all sounds very megalomaniacal.

I walked into our hotel's conference room, our team room. I was one of the first there. I'm never late for anything. My biggest pet hate: people who are regularly late. This was my very first team meeting with my new team. On the walls were past performances of the others in the team. I didn't have a poster up there. I had just made the New Zealand Test team. There was a poster for every hundred scored and five-wicket haul my team-mates had taken at Test level. Two of them read:

A what? An Unheralded Win. Most of us looked at each other a little perplexed. I a little more than most - as it was, I could hardly believe I was there to start with.

Slowly we worked it out. It was the number of dot balls faced. The reason John Bracewell, our coach, wanted to emphasise this point was to identify to how long it takes to have success: the hard work, the graft, the work that goes under the radar to make up the overall success.

That was to be the focus for the three-Test series we were preparing for. Trying to inch it out. Take it deep, take it into day five, the last day, where anything can happen. On reflection I feel "Braces" was trying to make it as hard as possible for our opponents, Australia, to beat us; to give us the best chance to not lose.

As I reflect now, ten years on, I see a fault in Braces' idea. I like the premise, but the fault lay in the team it was being put to: the ingredients didn't quite match the recipe.

The issue was that we didn't really have the class, the skill or the Test match fitness to compete after three and a half days, often enough. At the end of the completed first innings we'd regularly be right up there and competing with teams ranked a lot higher than us, but this work would be undone in the blink of an eye - a bad half day or, at our worst, a match-losing session. We'd run out of steam, make mistakes, and those mistakes would compound and the game would be gone before we even got to day five.

And so, as we've heard Brendon McCullum talk about so regularly recently, after winning the toss in Cape Town in January 2013 and being dismissed for 45, something had to change for New Zealand.

And it has.

But I don't see it the way a lot of others see it. While McCullum, as captain, is in charge, I don't see it quite as clear-cut as New Zealand playing just like Brendon does.

I'm looking a little deeper and at the same time reflecting back to 2005, a team McCullum was a big part of. Trying to take a game deep didn't work for us. We weren't good enough, we would run out of steam. And since we didn't play as many Tests as some other teams, we couldn't learn to develop that Test match fitness (physical, mental, and emotional) that is so necessary for success.

To contrast that, then: to an extent, what we're seeing this New Zealand team do is say, let us win in four days. Let us not go out there to grind them down, let us go out there and take the game to them. Not to absorb the pressure but to force it back. Let us attack as much as possible. Make them make the mistakes.

This style - it's actually not a style. It is a product of the players New Zealand are producing. Not the product of one person's vision.

New Zealand had a dearth of quick swing bowlers. They lost an era of quicks due to elements of the cricket academy. Now the bowlers are back. The attack is dominated by 24- to 29-year-olds, left and right-handed, attacking swing bowlers (Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Adam Milne, Mitchell McClenaghan, Matt Henry, Ben Wheeler, Doug Bracewell).

Well, pitch it up then, swing it, hold the catches, and try to take wickets as often as possible. It's not a decision on how to play. The decision is dictated by the ingredients on offer.

The Test batting order is a little different. Not all of them go out there and give it a whack. If you allow me some creative licence to describe how the New Zealand Test batting line-up is, it's like a good breakfast.

Any breakfast needs a solid foundation. Let us say some rolled oats. Honest, reliable and versatile, Tom Latham is your man.

With oats as the base, some, like myself, might require something just to break that up. You could add cornflakes. That's Martin Guptill - more fun than oats but still a solid staple.

At three, cultured and adding flavour and substance, Kane Williamson is the yoghurt that holds it together.

Next is the zingy fruit topping, the fun bit, the real flavour, and the bit that makes breakfast really worth making time for: Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum.

Then it's back to oats, this time as a crispy topping. Just in time for the second new ball, BJ Watling. Solid, but there to back up and enhance what has already come.

Now it's time for the strong coffee, Luke Ronchi, to close out the breakfast. He is there to add some punch and a caffeine kick to finish.

Is that order a product of the captain, or are these guys the best on offer in New Zealand, collected into a team that works?

Look at your ingredients and work out what you can cook and how you're going to cook it. Trying to make a cake the wrong ingredients won't work.

This New Zealand team and the cricket it plays is the product of the ingredients, the optimum use of them all. It's a fusion, it's a fluid menu, as stock changes, so does the product. Currently it is freshly sourced and plentifully stocked.

It is a team game, let us do it "our" way.