English counties are recruiting New Zealand cricketers in droves and it is no accident.
The friendly competitiveness with which last year's touring team played has imbued a belief that any New Zealander's presence will spread that spirit osmosis-like into their own ranks.
The Black Caps are perfect targets with nointernational cricket scheduled between April and mid-July.
After that, the future tours programme schedule has them playing from late July to April against Zimbabwe (away), South Africa (home and away), India (away), Bangladesh (home), Pakistan (home) and Australia (away).
Eight Black Caps are signed in various formats across the English season. They include Matt Henry and Mitchell Santner (Worcestershire), Brendon McCullum and Mitchell McClenaghan (Middlesex), Hamish Rutherford (Derbyshire), Ross Taylor (Sussex), Neil Wagner (Lancashire) and Kane Williamson (Yorkshire).
Luke Ronchi is understood to be in discussions with a county - he played for Somerset last season - while Jesse Ryder and Auckland pace bowler Matt Quinn, who holds a British passport, will be at Essex.
McCullum's team was revered by players, administrators, media and fans in England. A relatively docile Ashes had pundits querying why New Zealand was allotted only two tests. The 1-1 result was their seventh consecutive undefeated series. The topic was also broached before the series. New Zealand lost at Lord's but won at Headingley, their first test victory on English soil in 16 years.
McCullum was unfazed by the Lord's defeat, adamant his side applied the method which best suited them. "There's an element of pride that we continue to play a style that gives us our greatest chance [of winning]. There will be times teams can stand up to you and withstand the pressure. You have to doff the cap, say 'well played' and make sure next time you go hard again and ask the same question. "Emotionally, our guys are steady and that's allowed us to play some good cricket so 'no knee-jerk reaction' will be the message to a performance like this because we were pretty good for most of it."
That statement inspired myriad column inches on the team's joie de vivre, something which extended to an ODI series in which a record aggregate of runs were scored. England won 3-2.
It's better to play with freedom and be a desirable global commodity than beg for scraps of attention and pity.
