It was a sight to gladden Kiwi hearts

Canterbury cricket captain Gary Stead has arrived home from a successful sortie in the Netherlands and says he's ready to start the New Zealand domestic season right now

Wellington all-rounder James Franklin thrilled at having spent a week at Australian fast bowling great Dennis Lillee's clinic in India

Talented Auckland batsman Lou Vincent has returned from a winter stint in the Netherlands feeling more in control of his game and determined to achieve more consistency this summer

If New Zealand can score 465 runs with such a mixture of batting as it did in setting a record total against Zimbabwe in the second Test at Harare, what is it capable of when getting everything together

New Zealand cricket coach David Trist is hopeful that left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori will be back in action in time for the tour of South Africa starting next month

Auckland-based professor of sport Robin McConnell believes some of the New Zealand Olympic sports wondering where their first medal in Sydney is going to come from could learn some lessons from Auckland Cricket

Stephen Mather and Glenn Jonas, two former Wellington players who spent their last two summers in Dunedin may be lost to cricket this summer

Ken Rutherford has ended his first season as Ireland's national cricket coach believing his new charges are getting better but knowing much work lies ahead

Wellington wicketkeeper Chris Nevin completed the second of his two rigorous fitness assessments in Christchurch on Friday and Saturday, and immediately collapsed in heap

Roger Twose doesn't see a lack of match play as a problem as he leaves for Zimbabwe to join the New Zealand one-day cricket side

Geoff Allott might have shared the honours with Shane Warne as the best bowlers of the 1999 World Cup but it's been a long haul for Allott to get himself back into the fitness frame to pick up his career

Two weeks soaking up the Olympic Games atmosphere while watching his fiancée in the New Zealand hockey team became only two days when Glen Sulzberger was called into the Black Caps on their African tour

The man who played in 22 of New Zealand's Test cricket victories was pleased with the way the Black Caps provided him with a first up win as convener of the national selection panel

Stephen Fleming goes into the second Test against Zimbabwe on Tuesday on the brink of becoming New Zealand's most successful Test captain

Too often in New Zealand's cricket history sides have got themselves into winning positions only to fail ram the advantage home

It may have been headed for the gold medal as the dullest Test match of the year, but New Zealand's fightback with both the bat and ball may yet produce one of the more exciting finishes

Merv Wallace - A Cricket Master

Nathan Astle's 'dismissal' said it all about New Zealand's first innings on day three in the first Test against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo

Christchurch's Jade Stadium returns to the Test cricket fold this summer when hosting the third test with Pakistan