All cricket tours have a taste. England tastes like upholstery in a new Volvo. India and Pakistan taste like flat Pepsi and last night’s pyrotechnic leftovers. Australia tastes like tears. But New Zealand, the Land of the Small White Crowd, is strange enough to the South African public to taste only of Aquafresh and coffee, the two ingredients necessary to watch Test cricket from 3am onwards.
The time difference will contribute to the novelty of the next two months, but so will the fact that New Zealand is comparatively uncharted by South African cricket.
Two tours in a decade since re-admission — the first no more than an ambassadorial courtesy-call — have left us with no clear impression of the place and its cricket, and despite watching 11 hours of footage (punctuated with orc massacres and emoting hobbits) we are none the wiser about its weather, its pitches and the form of its erratic team. At least we know about Stephen Fleming.
Those who have made them say there is an art to Test centuries, a technique that goes beyond the expected excellence of hand and eye. For some it seems to come as easily as putting away a half-volley. For others it takes three or four seasons of graft. And then there’s Fleming.
Until a year ago the generously gifted Kiwi captain seemed doomed to be bracketed with former England skipper Mike Brearley, a pleasant bloke and excellent captain whose batting was, at best, ornamental. Then in Sri Lanka the penny dropped and Fleming hacked himself a slab of the action, smearing an unbeaten 274.
A more recent 190-and-change against Pakistan suggests that Fleming’s days of ‘after you†at the buffet table are over. His appetite will soon become clear to Graeme Smith’s men.
No longer tucking in is Chris Cairns. The national treasure, apparently made of tissue-paper and gossamer, must realistically be ignored when considering New Zealand’s lineup. By now synonymous with chronic injury, Cairns will likely not be missed if the late blossoming of Fleming bolsters a workman-like top six.
South Africa’s top six, on the other hand, is not a concern, and if the last tour is any yardstick, only Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis need pack their pads. The corporal punishment meted out to the New Zealanders’ attack in 1999 was pure roadkill: it was ugly, but you couldn’t look away.
Indeed, Mfuneko Ngam would be forgiven for believing that the cricketing demons had picked him out for special treatment.
Almost as daunting as long-term stress fractures would have been the prospect of trying to stage an international comeback on pitches either boggy with mould or consisting of sawdust held together with woodglue, something Gibbs and Daryll Cullinan have especially happy memories of.
But Ngam and South Africa’s frontline seam-up threesome should take notice of more recent history. New Zealand’s series win against India last year was simple Russian roulette. The home team emerged as the last man standing after a bout fought on the pitches that, while not quite sheep paddocks, did transform fast-medium lads into unplayable, leg-cutting fiends and kept usually somnambulating second slips wide awake.
Any venue where both first-innings scores are under 100, as was the case in Hamilton, is going to keep Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini interested.
With the limited-overs series up first (so that its fans get sent to bed when the grown-ups want to watch the Tests), New Zealand will point to its recent 4-1 thrashing of Pakistan. What they won’t point to is that the same Pakistan team is under a fresh match-fixing cloud. Or that they have won 9 out of 34 one-day internationals against South Africa.
It will rain a lot, some South African batsmen are going to do unseemly things with the bowling of some Kiwi medium-pacers, but that’s all one can suggest with any certainty. But after the West Indies’ barren and mostly irrelevant visit, it will be good to see some real cricket.