Top 5 New Zealand Test opening pairs of all time
Good opening batsmen are essential ingredients for a good Test team and although New Zealand have had a few of them, they never quite had an opening pair which could be compared with the best in the world.
However, there have been opening pairs who have shaped the course of New Zealand's Test history. Here is a look at 5 of the most prolific opening pairs for New Zealand in Test cricket.
#5 Mark Richardson and Lou Vincent
The pair did not open the batting for New Zealand for long but for the brief period that they did, Mark Richardson and Lou Vincent ended up forming the 5th most prolific opening partnership in the country's Test cricket history.
Left-handed Richardson was an old-school opening batsman and preferred to dig in for long hours, without much regard to scoring. He was cautious, had an excellent defensive technique and the judgement to leave most deliveries alone.
On the other hand, Vincent was a more adventurous player and although he did possess the requisite technical skills, he preferred to go after anything loose. The pair opened 19 times between 2001 and 2003, during the course of which they made 745 runs in total at a decent average of 41.38. They put on stands in excess of a hundred twice and crossed the fifty run mark the same number of times.