Leading Edge: New Zealand, where small is beautiful

The Kiwis have fewer stars in their dressingroom than they have on their flag, but they are test cricket’s second-best side.

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE in London

PAM was on her way. Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam, to give her her full and foreboding title.

She had ripped Vanuatu to shreds, displacing almost half the population, affecting all of it, and killing 11. Forty-five would eventually die at her hands. Now she was sideswiping Napier, a sleepy seaside town snug in the cuddling crescent of Hawke’s Bay on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island.

As bad luck would have it, a couple of intrepid South African reporters — one of them your columnist — had taken a detour from South Africa’s 2015 World Cup campaign to pop off to Napier and see what’s there, and visit friends in the area.

Now it was time to leave. Pam permitting. Wind threatened to take our taxi off the road as we made our way to airport, rain lashing us all the way. It was like being in a toy car driving through a jacuzzi with the jets going full tilt.

We had made our dash from our hotel — dodging flying patio furniture to duck into the cab — before the weather closed in properly, and so reached the airport an hour and more before we needed to to make our flight.

A good thing, too. In we staggered bedraggled to see what seemed to be the only person on duty. He was stationed at one of the only two check-in desks at the back of the room, or not 20 metres from the entrance.

He looked at our tickets, and said with a jerk of his head towards the aircraft on the runway: “You’re on the flight after this …

“Nah. Best you get on this one, ’cause an hour from now nothing’s going nowhere.”

He typed into a keyboard, relieved us of our bags, tagged them, handed us boarding passes, and that was that — no hurried calls, no fuss, no bother. There was plenty of bounce and swing on our escape to more civilised skies, but we made it unscathed.

Welcome to New Zealand, where good things happen because small is beautiful.

Things like Kane Williamson’s side earning what amounts to more than R7-million for claiming second place in the rankings at the annual cut-off date of April 1.

Few will be unhappy with that — the Kiwis are the nicest guys in the game — but many will be surprised. They shouldn’t be: New Zealand have lost only one of the 11 tests they’ve played since rain on the last day in Hamilton in March 2017 helped South Africa escape with a 1-0 win instead of a drawn series.

Williamson and Henry Nichols are among the top 10 batters and Neil Wagner and Trent Boult feature on the corresponding list of bowlers, but 10 players scored more runs than any New Zealander in test cricket last year and 17 took more wickets.

New Zealand have fewer stars in their team than there are on the flag above their dressingroom, and their number of registered players — 170 000 — is dwarfed by Australia’s 1.3-million.

But the Kiwis prove every day that bigger doesn’t mean better. Just the opposite, actually. Especially in a cyclone.