It's a battle between the Ashes and World Test Championship for greater narratives, maybe ECB dramas sprinkled on top. All of which feels as though it is waltzing around the most notable yarn from this Test series; are we sure England is a superior cricketing nation than Aotearoa?
To understand what the Blackcaps are doing, we have to understand how they fit into the Test cricket landscape and nothing about Test cricket is fair.
Doing it in your own conditions is one thing, doing it in foreign conditions is another matter. Taking on batsmen and bowlers in their own territory. Meeting them where they eat and beating them.
The Niche Cache loves Ross Taylor - he is Aotearoa's leading run-scorer in Tests and ODIs after all.
Top-tier Blackcaps batsmanship has been in a fruitful wee period and a Test team featuring many of Aotearoa's best cricketers ever has created a hearty group of batsmen who have been enjoying the slow cooking process.
BJ Watling is a stats man. Whether he himself cares about the numbers all that much, dunno, but he’s one of those players whose excellence is right there for all to see on his Cricinfo profile.
Otago Sparks weren't much of a funky force last summer.
Despite the chaos in the world, Aotearoa cricket matters are fairly settled and we're entering the build up phase where energy is being concentrated for the Blackcaps blossoming in England.
Just eight weeks after the Junior Fa fight, on the opposite side of the world working with a brand new trainer... Joseph Parker was able to dish up a split decision victory over Derek Chisora in Manchester and that W is by far the most important thing.
During the week it was reported that Wellington Firebirds had snapped up Nathan Smith from Otago Volts for the upcoming summer.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Joseph Parker was sitting at a press conference in Auckland, Kevin Barry to his side, answering questions about his unanimous decision victory over Junior Fa. It was pretty much just two months ago.
The demands on the modern cricketer are pretty hefty. Bouncing around the world from team to team, from format to format, from domestic to international, from red ball to white ball. Expected to smoothly transition between all of them and perform at a high level throughout.
The least fun thing about summertime cricket in Aotearoa may be the lack of spin bowling.
The Plunket Shield is with Canterbury and the leaves are falling, meaning that it is time for another Plunket Shield All Stars team to be named.
The 2020/21 kiwi cricket summer has been all about Canterbury. Canterbury women won the Super Smash and Hallyburton-Johnstone Shield, the only female competitions to win while Canterbury men have added Plunket Shield glory to their Ford Trophy win.
The whispers from Wellington started to percolate. Another South African had made the move to Aotearoa and this bloke arrived with nothing promised to him, just a fresh start and a hope to play his best cricket.
And so the Aotearoa summer comes to an end with the Blackcaps bullying all cricketing tourists.
As the third and final T20I against Australia fell victim to rain, we continue on the journey of trying to figure out what's doing with Aotearoa White Ferns.
Welcome back ODI cricket! Having made a hard and fast visit into the minds of kiwi cricket fans with three ODIs against Bangladesh, ODI cricket drifts back into the abyss.
Maybe The Niche Cache has read the whole Aotearoa White Ferns situation completely wrong?