How richly blessed Australia latterly has been with run-makers, and run-making conditions. This was true even in England last year for, although what sticks in the memory is the swing and seam and spectacular collapses, three of the top four scorers in that series were Australians.
Last summer, the cynosure was Steve Smith. Between summers, it was Chris Rogers. At the start of this summer, it was David Warner, with Joe Burns as a kind of frequent flyer bonus. It is not as if Smith and Warner have eased off. In the past 12 months, they have averaged 71 and 58 respectively, and each has amassed more runs than Adam Voges.
But they are like Brendon McCullum's headwear, old hat. Two more darlings have emerged to cast them at least into statistical shade, lest monotony take hold and boredom set in. There they were, Adam Voges and Usman Khawaja, on the bed of roses that the Basin Reserve pitch had become, making another century each, and there was not a damned thing New Zealand could do about it. 
The stats first; cricket protocol demands it. Khawaja now is averaging 128 since his recall at the start of the summer, and 53 in a suddenly prosperous career. But so what: Voges is averaging 100 and a fraction. Seven not outs help, though New Zealand may quibble about his most recent not out on a technicality. As colleague Andrew Wu has observed, this is a time of such batting plenty for Australia that a man averaging 100 is only the fourth-picked batsman in the team (and another who made 182 in his most recent innings is not there at all).
In this period of feast, you can pick from a selection of favourites, using your own criteria. It may be statistics. It may be results, the bottom line. It may be aesthetics. Here, Khawaja tops the poll. He is the Gower of the south. It starts with the way his bat is connected to his hand: where others grip, his dangles, and all his shots have that quality. Watching him bat is like listening to a favourite piece of mellow music; you find yourself humming along, which is all the more magical since his instruments are a hard ball and lump of timber.
While Khawaja and Voges were together, Voges was more like the bass beat. When left to hold the fort, his other qualities came into relief. Compared with Khawaja, or Warner, or Smith, he is machine-like, but any engineer will tell you that a well-designed and smoothly functioning machine is a thing of beauty anyway.
We know it hasn't and won't always be like this. In the spring, there is a trip to the sub-continent, and next summer visits from South Africa and Pakistan, featuring two day-night Tests, when pitches and balls go rogue. It was in the day-night Test that Voges was last dismissed, 528 Test runs ago. But for now, it is like this, and is to be rejoiced in.
The poor old Kiwis became incidentals, props in their own stadium. They tried. They tried short stuff. They tried dry line. They tried aiming for blind spots. They tried one side of the pitch only, with inner and outer circles. They tried over and around the wicket, left-arm and right, fast men and slow, old ball and new, which soon enough was old again, with the breeze and into it, and got only a little bit of innocuous drift. They took the catches than came to them; it was just that there were only two. They tried to look busy and interested. They tried talking it up. They tried, but could leave no mark on the pitch or the batsmen; both were too hard. They tried everything except mooning the batsmen from behind the bowlers' arm. In this, the crowd also was restrained, contra to long-established form. Evidently, even they take their cues from McCullum.
In fact, save the occasional plaintive "c'mon Southee", the tone was conversationally chirpy, the sound of people making up their own minds, interrupted only by the periodic clattering of the sightscreens, like shunting goods wagons.
But this is preserved cricket, in a living museum. The stadium is dilapidated, but charming. Perhaps that is also true of the crowd. Nonetheless, they were well attuned to proceedings. When Doug Bracewell at last bowled a maiden, the crowd raised a self-consciously ironic cheer. The mere fact of the taking of the ball was worth a hurrah, and was not misplaced; suddenly, Trent Boult took two wickets in three balls. It was the wrong time to go to the toilet.
Khawaja and Voges belonged in this landscape. Khawaja's batsmanship is timeless, while Voges is the man time almost forgot. His conduct is yesteryear - no leaping and twirling, minimal hugging - and so his batting. It is without pretensions. A reverse is something he would do only in his car, a Datsun, you imagine. The point he so subtly makes is that, if you are good enough, and in rare enough form, (and your bowlers have bought you all the time in the world), orthodoxy will do just fine.


SCOREBOARD FIRST TEST
New Zealand v Australia
At Basin Reserve, Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Batsman      Runs Balls
M GUPTILL  c Smith b Hazlewood   18 (18)
T LATHAM  c Nevill b Hazlewood   6  (6)
K WILLIAMSON  c Nevill b Siddle     16  (18)
H NICHOLLS  c Nevill b Siddle     8  (13)
B McCULLUM  c Warner b Hazlewood    0  (7)
C ANDERSON  c Khawaja b Lyon     38  (87)
B WATLING  c Nevill b Hazlewood    17  (51)
D BRACEWELL  c Voges b Siddle     5  (11)
M CRAIG    not out      41  (57)
T SOUTHEE  c Hazlewood b Lyon    0  (3)
T BOULT    c Khawaja b Lyon     24  (22)
Sundries   (4b, 1lb, 5nb)    10
Total  All out      183
Fall: 17 (Latham), 38 (Guptill), 44 (Williamson), 47 (McCullum), 51 (Nicholls), 88 (Watling), 97 (Bracewell), 137 (Anderson), 137 (Southee), 183 (Boult)
Bowling: J Hazlewood 14-2-42-4, J Bird 10-1-52-0 (3nb), P Siddle 12-5-37-3 (2nb), M Marsh 6-1-15-0, N Lyon 6-0-32-3.
Overs: 48
AUSTRALIA
Batsman      Runs Balls
J BURNS   c Watling b Southee   0 (4)
D WARNER  c Watling b Southee   5  (7)
U KHAWAJA  lbw Boult      140  (216)
S SMITH    c&b Craig     71  (112)
A VOGES    not out      176  (286)
M MARSH   c&b Boult     0  (2)
P NEVILL   c Watling b Anderson   32  (94)
P SIDDLE   not out     29  (61)
Sundries   (4b, 2lb, 2w, 2nb)    10
Total   Six wickets for     463
Fall: 0 (Burns), 5 (Warner), 131 (Smith), 299 (Khawaja), 299 (Marsh), 395 (Nevill).
Bowling: T Southee 28-5-76-2 (1w), T Boult 27-6-80-2, D Bracewell 25-4-97-0 (2nb), C Anderson 14-0-68-1 (1w), M Craig 32-2-128-1, K Williamson 4-0-8-0.
Overs: 130
Umpires: R Illingworth, R Kettleborough
SCOREBOARDFIRST TEST