At a period piece of a ground, in by modern standards baroque conditions, a classic Test match promised. In the one-size-fits-all era, you don't see many grounds like this any more, and Australians don't see much cricket like this. For them, the Basin Reserve was not so much home away from home as foreign land so close to home. It was all the more to their credit that they took the advantage and fashioned it into what is already a match-winning position. The luck they made for themselves held to the last over, when Adam Voges was bowled by a delivery wrongly called as a no-ball.
More than ever, cricket is about adaptation, between countries, between forms of the game, between pitches and balls, from match to match, even innings to innings. Most players in this match have in the last six weeks played all three versions. New Zealand, having made Australia's bed, first had to lie in it themselves. All out 183 tells the story of their recoil. 
Though short, it was an innings in three parts. From ball one, there was a little movement, always more dangerous to batsmen than a lot. Mostly, the ball hit the middle of the bat, and made a booming sound as it did. Only two plays-and-misses come readily to mind. But the off-centre hits all were edges, and all were caught, most memorably Peter Nevill's one-glover from Kane Williamson's inside edge, the sort usually seen only in backyard swimming pools. After an hour, the Kiwis were 5-51.
If there was a common factor in the wickets, it was that batsmen went hard at the ball. But credit must accrue to seamers Josh Hazlewood and Peter Siddle for pitching up and straight and accurately.
Force hadn't worked for the Kiwis, so Corey Anderson and BJ Watling tried patience instead. For an hour and more, they forgot about the runs. Overs passed without incident. Here was the regrouping that 50-over cricket rarely permits and 20-over cricket never. Both sides waited, as if trying to smoke one another out. Here was adaptation to circumstances, treating the itch without scratching it. Anderson, for context's sake, owns the second-fastest hundred ever in one-day cricket.
But deep within the batsmen, traces of white-ball cricket coursed. The eventual dismissals of Watling and Anderson were of a kind, each hitting a four then perishing next ball. This precipitated some good old-fashioned all-or-nothing walloping for the last three wickets, which is not to sneeze at it; Mark Craig and confreres almost doubled New Zealand's score. The finish was a T20 flourish, Usman Khawaja juggling the ball over the boundary rope and back into the field of play to catch Trent Boult.
Both Australia's openers were gone before Khawaja and Steve Smith at last were able to apply the Goldilocks principle, find the pace and rhythm just right for this pitch. For this, they were perfectly adapted, Khawaja because he plays so late it looks as though he is using a cushion and Smith because he can play in all the veins and moods. New Zealand tried bowling wide of off stump to both, but all knew that the mountain would not come to Mohammed. Duly, the bowlers straightened and the batsmen flourished. At length, Smith's hands ran away from him and he crashed at Mark Craig a return catch so low Smith and the umpires thought it best to seek a second opinion. It was clean.
In the last over, Doug Bracewell bowled Adam Voges, only to be thwarted by umpire Richard Illingworth's call of no-ball. As much as could be said from a camera angle pointing into the sun, the umpire was wrong, but the Kiwis did not know it and had no recourse anyway. Again, the DRS protocols were revealed to be flawed. If this day proved anything, it was that man can adapt, machines and management can't.