Andrew Mulligan: Win vital for NZ cricket

After a tough opening day, Doug Bracewell and the New Zealand bowlers need to fire this series to maintain the national team's positive public perception. Picture / Getty Images

It's amazing to think we can triumph over the Wallabies and Australian cricket team, starting with breaking the Gabba hoodoo of the past 26 years, in the space of just over a week. Max.

For that to happen, though, everyone around the twin attack of Trent Boult and Tim Southee has to do their job.

This is the opinion of former international fast bowler Simon Doull, who I work with at Radio Sport.

This is the most important series we've had for a long time. There have been fantastic results and the 1999 victory in England is probably the one I can think of, results-wise, of the past 20 years but heading into that, what was the hype surrounding it? What were the expectations of the team?

They were obviously talented but New Zealand cricket teams back then were never as good as the ones in the 1980s, or so they were made to feel and unfairly held up alongside.

I've worked with players from the 1990s and early 2000s and that's the underlying tone I've read into from some and been told by others.

This group of players, however, is arguably the most talented we've had since then.

Sir Richard Hadlee was the greatest and Martin Crowe was a genius but they were head and shoulders better than their teammates. Now the gap between the top players, from Kane Williamson down, is closer. This is based purely on potential, which is starting to be realised.

It's also so important to win this series for the future of test cricket in this part of the world. The stat bandied about yesterday was that Australia have played either England or India 27 times since the Black Caps were last in Australia for a test series. That's ridiculous. But that's cricket.

Save for John Campbell starting a #BCstoOZ campaign, like he helped move the All Blacks to Samoa in July, the only people who carry the responsibility of regular contact after the organised schedule recently agreed is this current team.

The passive-aggressive chat between the captains in the lead-up has been welcomed as well. Brendon McCullum says we're not good enough to sledge. Steve Smith isn't buying the nice guy card and his team loves to attack by any means necessary. Without a hint of irony, David Warner has called our captain "immature" over a column in which he criticised Smith earlier this year.

These are seriously good times and have gone relatively unnoticed because of the Rugby World Cup celebrations. I just hope the confidence and talk is backed up on the field because this year has been nothing short of a tipping point in public perception for New Zealand cricket. The success in England and management of player workloads through the South African tour has been building up to this series.