Ross Taylor, BJ Watling, and Neil Wagner are gone. Having come to terms to playing Test cricket without Trent Boult, New Zealand will now have to go into T20 World Cups without him as well. Kane Williamson has declined the national contract – as have Boult and Jimmy Neesham – and is not the national captain in any format anymore.

Tim Southee and Ajaz Patel are 35; Boult, 34; Williamson, Lockie Ferguson, Neesham, Daryl Mitchell, and Tom Blundell 33; and Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Mitchell Santner, and Devon Conway 32. None of them is getting any younger.

Despite their ages, seldom does a generation of cricketers fade out at the same time – unless there is a blow, that is. New Zealand’s first ever group-stage exit at the T20 World Cup, in 2024, may catalyse that. The Golden Generation of New Zealand Cricket is perhaps on its way out.

This is the team that won the World Test Championship in 2021; did not lose a single Test series at home between 2016/17 and 2023/24; won a series in England, drew one in Sri Lanka, and beat Pakistan in the UAE.

They lost nothing but the final of the 2015 World Cup. In the 2019 World Cup, they did not even lose the final. Perhaps to emphasise their domination across formats, they made it to the final of the 2021 T20 World Cup as well.

Four finals in six years is substantial – but perhaps more than that, the phase helped New Zealand earn something that had eluded them: prestige. It helped them evolve from the also-ran “nice guys” of cricket to a formidable side capable of going all the way.

The road to respect

If you are into world map memes, you might have come across a theme on New Zealand. So remote is its location on Eurocentric world maps that it is cropped out altogether.

Throughout history, cricket has mimicked this casual approach of cartographers towards New Zealand. For decades, teams used to visit the nation as a side trip only on tours of Australia. There used to be cricket, some of it of great quality, but it was not considered seriously, not even when they got Test status.

England welcomed them to Test cricket by sending simultaneous squads to New Zealand and to the West Indies in 1930. On their 1931 tour of England, New Zealand were initially allotted one Test match. They played so well that two tour matches were converted to Tests and the series became a three-match affair.

Australia’s Invincibles returned from England in 1948 to earn the tag of the Invincibles. The next summer, New Zealand did not lose a Test match to a county. The 49ers, cricket called them while adhering to their unimaginative worst. It would have been funny, had Australia, their nearest Test-playing nation and a founding member of the ICC, themselves not ignored New Zealand cricket.   

Given their geographical locations, it would have been logical for Australia and New Zealand to play Test cricket often. Yet, until 1973/74, the two teams had played only one Test, in New Zealand in 1945/46. When Australia began their domestic one-day tournament in 1969/70, New Zealand were invited – not to play against the champions but as another team.

You see the point about respect? In 1986, Graham Gooch famously called the New Zealand attack as “the World XI at one end and Ilford Second XI at the other”, referring to the legendary Richard Hadlee and his teammates. This was three years after New Zealand had won a Test match at Headingley: Hadlee did not take a single wicket in that game. Yet, the quote is remembered more than the Test match.   

New Zealand did not lose a Test series at home between 1978/79 and 1991/92. In the mid-1980s, they won series in Australia and England. And unlike some teams of higher profile, they did not have to bear the ignominy of a first-round exit at the Men’s World Cup – ODI or T20 – between 1987 and 2024.

New Zealand were not merely competing. They were being consistent over a sustained period. That, however, did not help them earn respect – not until their Golden Generation arrived to break new barriers.

How did New Zealand get there?

New Zealand Cricket underwent a significant overhaul in 1995 in the aftermath of the pot-smoking scandal involving Stephen Fleming, Dion Nash, and Matthew Hart. They formed a committee chaired by John Hood to look for a solution. The Hood Committee recommended “a drastic step”.

This led to, among other things, the development of a streamlined domestic system and a conscious improvement of the infrastructure (including playing conditions). In 2005, they issued a “warrant of fitness” for every ground to be considered fit for playing.

The effects showed over time. When franchise-based T20 cricket arrived, New Zealand adopted a pragmatic approach. Unlike some other teams, they did not bar their players from playing in any league. Neither did they try to mimic the IPL and create their own expensive city-based T20 competition. Instead, they stuck to a tournament based on their existing domestic teams.

As a result, the cricketers were happy with the board but also gained playing experience around the world. The improved conditions in domestic cricket, along with a well-functioning T20 league, helped them thrive across formats. Slowly, New Zealand built a talent pool deep enough to rest six players for the Lord’s Test of 2021 – and still win.

“NZC have overseen the evolution of men’s cricket from an amateur sport with low status to a professionalised organisation that has risen to international pre-eminence,” wrote Stefan Szymanski and Tim Wigmore in Crickonomics: The Anatomy of Modern Cricket. “New Zealand’s players are benefiting from a structure set-up to prolong their careers and maximise the nation’s cricketing talent.”

There was little dearth of sporting talent in New Zealand. Their performances across sports bear testimony to that. In cricket, it required a structural change. The first generation to benefit from that is on their way out, but with a system this robust in place, the next batch cannot be far away.

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