New Zealand v India, 2013-14

	New Zealand players uncork the champagne and celebrate their 4-0 win against India in the ODI series © Getty Images Enlarge
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New Zealand's success against India came at an opportune moment, as cricket's future pinballed around the ICC's boardroom table. With the tour unfolding in the shadow of Indian, English and Australian power-broking, the need for New Zealand to muster respect - at the very least - against the architects of the administrative revolution took on an almost political dimension.

Rolling over would have been a further step towards free fall for one of Test cricket's smaller nations; Martin Snedden, New Zealand Cricket's ICC delegate, admitted that his team's unassailable 3-0 lead in the one-day series did not damage his position at the negotiating table. "New Zealand can be a rollercoaster team to follow, but we must take every opportunity to prove we're competitive," he said. "This made it a little bit easier. We were tracking the third win closely in the boardroom through Cricinfo."

India proved vulnerable. They managed a tie in the one-day series, at Auckland, but couldn't complete a victory. They then lost the Auckland Test, despite a spirited recovery, and failed to capitalise on a strong position at Wellington, where Brendon McCullum - who had already made 224 at Eden Park - scored New Zealand's first Test triple-century, an epic match-saving innings spread across nearly 13 hours. His tally of 535 runs had been bettered in a two-Test series only by Sanath Jayasuriya, Wally Hammond and Andy Flower, and he became the third batsman, after Don Bradman (twice) and Hammond, to score a double and a triple in successive Tests. The mayor of Wellington, Celia Wade-Brown, later presented him with the keys to the city - the first such honour since 2002, when director Peter Jackson and three colleagues were acknowledged for their work on the Lord of the Rings films.

If it was the best of times for New Zealand's captain, it was the most frustrating of times for his opposite number. M. S. Dhoni's batting kept India in several matches, but support was patchy in a side that began the tour top of the one-day rankings and second in the Test table. Dhoni's failure to appear at a media conference ahead of the Second Test, while investigations continued into the possible role his Chennai Super Kings franchise had played in the IPL spot-fixing scandal, added to the sense of a captain under siege. The Test defeat at Auckland was his 11th in charge outside India, a national record, and he now had to go back to June 2011 - against West Indies in Jamaica - for a Test win abroad. Some of his tactics (most of them ultra-defensive) as India struggled for wickets on the third and fourth days at the Basin Reserve were hard to fathom.

New Zealand were not without their off-field frustrations. Doug Bracewell and Jesse Ryder - who had both been in trouble before - engaged in alcohol fuelled shenanigans on the eve of the First Test. Either could have been asked to play next day had the Eden Park wicket been too green for leg-spinner Ish Sodhi, or if Ross Taylor's wife had gone into labour. Instead they were dropped, eventually enabling Tom Latham and Jimmy Neesham to earn Test caps the following week at Wellington. Neesham did so with aplomb, making an unbeaten 137. Rather than fracturing team spirit, the misbehaviour of Ryder and Bracewell galvanised it.

The New Zealanders' triumph had unfamiliar implications. Talk back stations, social media and online forums were fuelled by goodwill, not the standard diet of melancholy. Such occasions have been rare enough since Richard Hadlee's retirement in 1990 to merit itemisation: the 1992 World Cup, the 1999 Test win in England, a strong one-day performance in Australia in 2001-02, and the Chappell-Hadlee Series whitewash over the Australians in 2006-07. A year ahead of the return of the World Cup to New Zealand, for the first time in 23 years, this was the perfect entre´e to capture hearts and minds.

India boasted potential match-winners, and there were Test centuries for Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli, as well as some incisive new-ball spells from Ishant Sharma. Yet they couldn't match Kane Williamson's appetite for runs, or deal with New Zealand's three-pronged seam attack - between them, Tim Southee, Neil Wagner and Trent Boult managed 32 wickets at 25 each - and a sense of lethargy pervaded their play.

Their status within the game may have provided India's cricketers with a cocoon of comfort, but it also appeared to militate against free thinking: questions on BCCI policy or the absence of DRS were batted away for fear of the consequences. The BCCI had already sacrificed a Test and a Twenty20 international on this tour in return for more one-day internationals, and TV money, in the Asia Cup which followed. The value in abbreviating a tour for such reasons needs assessment. Whether or not the ICC took note is another matter.

Match reports for

1st ODI: New Zealand v India at Napier, Jan 19, 2014
Report | Scorecard

2nd ODI: New Zealand v India at Hamilton, Jan 22, 2014
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3rd ODI: New Zealand v India at Auckland, Jan 25, 2014
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4th ODI: New Zealand v India at Hamilton, Jan 28, 2014
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5th ODI: New Zealand v India at Wellington, Jan 31, 2014
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Tour match: New Zealand XI v Indians at Whangarei, Feb 2-3, 2014
Scorecard

1st Test: New Zealand v India at Auckland, Feb 6-9, 2014
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2nd Test: New Zealand v India at Wellington, Feb 14-18, 2014
Report | Scorecard