Just some boring thoughts for you.
This year is pudding year. NZ have shown they can win series a good side is expected to win - West Indies home and away, India on our own turf, Sri Lanka on our own turf etc. Even poor New Zealand teams have made life very difficult and rarely lost to some classy Indian and Sri Lankan sides when they tour here.
The only exception was the Pakistan series. They dealt with Australia and I've just been reminded of what they did to England a few years ago. The UAE is about as alien to New Zealand conditions as you can get. We got smashed in the first, almost won the second and then got them in the third.
That's the result that sticks out to me as being the best case for NZ being good rather than decent. That was a really really good win. That case needs that test too because NZ has had some speed wobbles - dropping a test to West Indies (can happen, they can seriously bowl, and play in general when they click) and our stupid first day green top obsession required Herculean efforts from McCullum, Williamson and Watling (twice!) to fend off embarrassing losses to crappy pace attacks.
This year we have England in England, Sri Lanka come back and then Aussie home and away. This year will be much much harder. We fell short in and deserved to lose the first test last week because we had numerous opportunities to kick England in the ribs when they were on the ground but we didn't.
There are lots of little things that need to happen for us to be right up there
1. Opener. Obvious.
2. Some batsmen need to be less horrible starters. Guptill, Taylor, Baz, Anderson, Neesh and Watling are all more dubious than most early on.
3. It's nice we have a spinner who can win matches, but more consistency from Craig is needed. When he's not playing winning hands we need him to be economical.
4. We need to settle the third seamer argument.
5. We need Southee back at his best.
6. Baz will go too soon. We don't have any Baz's, Kane's or Ross's running around the Shield so we need someone to step up and improve like Rigor/Styris/Astle/Watling did.
7. No more green tops that are only green for the first day. The toss shouldn't all but decide the match barring the intervention of BJ Watling and A.N. Other.