If you were an England Test cricketer, now is roughly the moment you'd hope to be ushering your career from the sunnyish uplands in the general direction of the snow-kissed peaks.
After a year in which four of their five Test series took place in conditions better suited to the opposition – and that includes hosting South Africa, who appear to ignore conventional wisdom about home advantage whenever possible – they will embark later tonight in Dunedin on a long sequence apparently designed with all their whims and foibles in mind.
This is not to underestimate New Zealand. Last time England did that, they lost the first Test in Hamilton, and had to drop Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard in an ultimately successful bid to claw their way back – though only after slipping to 4 for 3 on the first morning of the decider in Napier.
Picture perfect: England begin their Test series with New Zealand at the University Oval in DunedinMore from Lawrence Booth... THE TOP SPIN: It was a thrilling win but England can't bat away concerns over plodding top order 20/05/13 THE TOP SPIN: Prior's award is a deserved reward for being England's Mr Selfless 14/05/13 THE TOP SPIN: Australia will want to summon up the spirit of '89 but England should leave it well alone 30/04/13 The Top Spin: Weather warning for England's spinners - Is this a golden era for Swann and Panesar? 23/04/13 THE TOP SPIN: Compton goes back to the future to show that cricket's past and present can form a solid partnership 16/04/13 THE TOP SPIN: Let's hope there's a happy medium pace between slow turn of county game and 90mph barrage from the IPL 08/04/13 THE TOP SPIN: Hunted England wear haunted look as eyes of the world see them struggle in New Zealand 25/03/13 The Top Spin: It's the end of an era as throwback Blackwell calls it a day (and ensures he will be a permanent one-cap wonder) 19/03/13 The Top Spin: England slow out of the blocks again... but second innings shows they've nipped it in the bud 12/03/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE
But world cricket's most southerly city will be the first of 32 successive Test matches in which the closest England will come to a discomfort zone will be on the now almost uniformly slow tracks of the Caribbean in early 2015. Even there they will not feel too out of place, unless Sunil Narine a) has learned how to make a nuisance of himself in five-day cricket and b) isn't busy at the IPL.
Between now and the away series against Pakistan in 2015-16 – wherever that takes place – England play Test series against New Zealand (away and home), Australia (twice at home, for goodness sake, and once away), Sri Lanka and India at home, and West Indies away. No one will admit it, of course, but it's not inconceivable that England could win the lot.
They probably won't; life is rarely that simple. Australia can't surely be as inept later this year as they currently appear in India; the Indians themselves will have the mother of all points to prove in 2014; and the last time England went to the Caribbean, they somehow lost a series which they were three wickets away from winning.
But the opportunity will be there for England to cash in – and in conditions that will not require the same kind of body-and-soul heroics typified by Alastair Cook in India.
It was always going to be thus. One of the challenges any England cricketer with a vague awareness of the fixture list would have set themselves at the start of 2012 ought to have been to make damn sure they were still in the team at the start of 2013.
In that respect, it was a bad year for Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Tim Bresnan and – though it is hardly his fault – Monty Panesar. (In fact, there is a serious danger Panesar will barely play another Test until late 2015, a victim as much of the scheduling as of Graeme Swann and his own fielding and batting.)
The beneficiaries have been Joe Root and Steven Finn, with Nick Compton in limbo and Stuart Broad unable to draw too much solace from his status as vice-captain. And it is those last two who may just provide the most compelling subplots in Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland.
To lose your place after coming through a debut series in which you did not quite prosper but, in unfamiliar conditions, did not drown either, would be tough justice. But that is precisely the scenario Compton faces if he gets a couple of good balls early on in New Zealand.
Final preparations: England are hoping to improve on the defeat suffered in the warm-up match
These things can happen. Marcus Trescothick averaged 28 in New Zealand, and Michael Vaughan 21. It was also the scene of Mark Ramprakash's final Test innings, bowled by Daryl Tuffey for 2 after coming in at No 7. As Nasser Hussain put it: 'Ramps had a big slog in Auckland when we were chasing 300 and Duncan (Fletcher) and I decided that enough was enough.'
In fact, it is to Hussain – and not to the other three, more naturally gifted, batsmen – that Compton should turn. Both are thoughtful, verging on the introspective. Both are fighters. Both are unlikely to get ahead of themselves. On New Zealand's nibblers, nemesis awaits hubris.
It is no great surprise that Hussain averaged 44 in his six Tests, which was seven higher than his career figure. That included one of the most easily overlooked of all hundreds, on Christchurch's drop-in wicket in 2001-02, when England were 0 for 2 after Chris Cairns's first over, and Hussain survived an all-but-unprecedented drop in the slips by Stephen Fleming to compile 106.
Big hitters: Nasser had to grit it out and Flintoff scored his first century in New Zealand in 2002Later, the pitch flattened out, allowing double-hundreds for Graham Thorpe and Nathan Astle, and a maiden Test century for Andrew Flintoff. But the game had already been set up by Hussain's bloody-mindedness. Compton's best hope of playing Ashes cricket is to settle, as in India, in Cook's slipstream.
If the presence of Root lower down the order means Compton is fighting for his career almost before it has begun, Broad needs only to relocate the length he bowled against India in 2011 and in the UAE that winter.
THE TOP SPIN ON TWITTERFor cricket-related snippets from England's tour of New Zealand, feel free to go to twitter.com/the_topspin
Bresnan's elbow surgery and Graham Onions's failure to take his chance during the warm-up defeat in Queenstown mean Broad is under no immediate pressure.
But he was dropped only two Tests ago amid suggestions he had shied away from the challenge of India's pitches. Andy Flower and David Saker will be watching closely.
Should both men emerge unscathed, potential riches await. The next series against South Africa is light years away, and the tourist guides to Asia can be shelved for the time being. England's Test cricketers may never get a better chance to feel good about themselves.
Plenty to ponder: Compton is yet to cement his position in the team while Root has been impressive THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WASKicking a man when he's down
Who'd be an Australian spinner in the post-Shane Warne era? Plenty of people, it turns out. After 20 Tests in which he had taken a respectable 65 wickets at a shade under 34, off-spinner Nathan Lyon became the latest Aussie slow bowler to pay the price for a nation's impatience.
Like Nathan Hauritz before him (63 wickets at just under 35), Lyon was ditched after a bad experience in India – hardly the greatest crime for an orthodox finger-spinner.
And it leaves Australia in another fine mess. Xavier Doherty is not a Test bowler, even if he does take the ball away from India's all-right-handed top six (one of the reasons given for Lyon's omission at Hyderabad); and Glenn Maxwell is, well, not a Test bowler.
If Australia return to Lyon in time for the Ashes, they will risk doing so to a cricketer devoid of confidence. It could be Hauritz and The Oval 2009 all over again…
In a spin: Lyons is the latest spinner to lose his place in the Australia team Hughes in a tangleIt's not just their bowling attack that has problems. The recent return of Phil Hughes as a No 3 against Sri Lanka after a year out of the Test team went reasonably well: a couple of 80s in a 3-0 win. But his batting against spin in India has made some of England's efforts in the UAE last year look like acts of heroic fortitude.
When Hughes was bowled round his legs on the sweep by Ravi Ashwin – only four overs after David Warner had fallen in almost precisely the same manner – it meant he had not scored a run against an Indian slow bowler while being dismissed four times by them, three by Ashwin, once by Ravindra Jadeja.
That's right: in 37 balls since he fell to Ashwin in the first innings at Chennai, as ESPNcricinfo have pointed out Hughes is in effect 0 for 4. Graeme Swann will have taken note – and England may just be hoping his observations won't be rendered null and void by Australia's selectors.
Conundrum: Hughes' form against spin has been woeful in India Cricket's duty of careThe revelations at the inquest into the death of Tom Maynard were understandably hard to process. Most upsetting of all was the response of the Maynard family, forced to go through another form of grief as they clung to the memory of a son and brother while details emerged of Tom's use of cocaine in the weeks before his death.
Yet cricket needs to ask itself a difficult question if such heartbreak isn't to recur. How was it that, in the tight-knit world of the domestic game, no one knew that a player regarded as the life and soul of any party felt the need to lose himself in drugs? And if they did know, why didn't they seek help?
The Professional Cricketers' Association and the ECB take seriously their duty of care, and players are being advised how to spot the warning signs. But it may be that the process has only just begun.
Road to recovery: Cricket has a duty to help players in light of Maynard's tragic death One down, two to goAnother week, another Test match comes under threat. This time, there are suggestions that India's proposed three-Test series in New Zealand next year could be trimmed to two so as not to get in the way of the one-day Asia Cup.
For every marquee clash that grabs the headlines, a Test series involving one of the lower-ranked teams seems to suffer a cut here, a trim there. It is death by stealth – and cricket is trying to convince itself that no one notices.
More... Swann admits elbow injury could mean bit-part role during Ashes series Can we play the Ashes now? Australia slump to innings defeat against India Bracewell out of first Test after cutting his foot clearing up after a house party Nasser Hussain: England must be wary of the underdogs' bite or they could come unstuck
