Corey Anderson took a hefty dollop of reassurance out of his blockbusting unbeaten 94 against Bangladesh today.
After all, innings of 14 and four in the previous two T20 internationals, hadn't done much to give him a boost back in the national team.
But today, buoyed by a New Zealandrecord 10 sixes during his crowd-pleasing highest T20 score, Anderson was chuffed.
''I've been out in the wilderness with international cricket but it was nice, after two low scores to come back and get a decent total," Anderson said.
Six more runs and he'd have become the fourth New Zealander with a T20 century, after Brendon McCullum (twice), Martin Guptill and Colin Munro.
His last T20 before this series was at the world tournament in India last March; he missed the Chappell Hadlee series before Christmas and the three ODIs against Bangladesh, so today was a welcome sight.
''It probably reassures you," he said of today's effort.
''You always have times when you have form slumps, periods when you're not scoring runs and you start questioning yourself - (whether it's) technique or 'what am I thinking'.
''Those processes get at ease when you do something like that, you can relax and feed off that and get a bit of rhythm into other games."
Allrounder Anderson won't be in Wellington for the first test starting on Thursday. He's being nursed back to full bowling health with his troublesome back so he's assessed as a batsman only for now, a situation he doesn't like, but has to accept for now.
But he likes what he's seeing from New Zealand going into that two-match series.
''This was a pretty clinical series. They'll take a lot of confidence going into the tests.
''What we've done over the last few days, with different guys putting hands up at different times, has been the most pleasing thing."
Bangladesh allrounder Shakib al Hasan praised New Zealand tactical smarts in their series victory.
He also acknowledged his team's fielding had let them down at key times and pointed to the power within the New Zealand team, which Bangladesh struggle to match.
He could have had Anderson squarely in his thoughts when he made that comment.
