The complicated truth: NZ pitches can be good for batting too

A decade of data suggests that New Zealand’s surfaces may be less hostile to batters than their reputation implies, especially as Test matches wear on

For years, cricket in New Zealand has endured a familiar trope—green pitches, cloud cover, a hint of movement off the seam and fast bowlers capable of making life uncomfortable for even the most accomplished visiting batters. For touring sides, mastering those conditions is often presented as the essential first step towards success. But a look at international scoring patterns over the past decade suggests the story is more complicated.

Abhishek Sharma of India during a training session at the Hagley Oval, Christchurch, New Zealand on October 21, 2026. (CREIMAS for BCCI)

New Zealand’s reputation as a country where the ball moves and batting can be difficult is not necessarily incompatible with another possibility—that its pitches can become rewarding places to score runs, particularly in Test cricket. With India beginning an all-format tour on Thursday, the numbers offer a useful counterpoint to the conventional wisdom. Across Tests, ODIs and T20Is, New Zealand doesn’t consistently sit at the bottom of the scoring tables. Most strikingly, it tops the comparison for average team totals in the second half of Test matches.

The analysis using CricViz data covers the 10 countries—excluding Ireland and Afghanistan—that held full-member status throughout the entire 10-year period. It removes weather-shortened games and compares average first-innings scores across the three formats. In Tests, it also examines the combined scoring averages for the third and fourth innings.

At individual grounds, however, the figures illustrate the wide range within New Zealand cricket. Eden Park in Auckland averages a very high 184 in first-innings T20 totals, while Wellington averages a middling 170. Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui records 163 and Hagley Oval in Christchurch 161. The difference between Auckland and Christchurch is substantial, reinforcing the point that an overall average can conceal important venue-specific characteristics.

In ODIs, New Zealand sits seventh among the 10 countries, with an average first-innings total of 257. That is a distinctly middling position, suggesting that the country’s white-ball conditions don’t routinely produce the kind of high-scoring totals associated with the most batter-friendly environments. One year before the ODI World Cup to be hosted by South Africa, this tour of New Zealand could ideally help India ace the art of cautious but productive batting.

The ODI numbers could seem intimidating, yet neither format supports the simplistic assumption that New Zealand is invariably a difficult place to bat. Nor do the numbers establish that the surfaces are unusually flat. They indicate something more nuanced—New Zealand's scoring environment varies by format and venue, and its reputation cannot substitute for the evidence.

Tests reveal a positive

In Test cricket, however, the data become particularly revealing. New Zealand's average first-innings total per team innings is 324—fifth among the 10 Test playing nations. Pakistan leads with 355, followed by Sri Lanka at 352, Zimbabwe at 338 and India at 329. New Zealand is therefore neither an outlier nor an obvious batting haven when the opening two innings of a Test are considered.

But the picture changes when the match moves into its second half. New Zealand averages 242 runs per team innings across the third and fourth innings—the highest in the 10-nation comparison. England is second at 241, and Sri Lanka are third at 228. India, by contrast, averages 190, the second worst among all 10 countries. The contrast between its fifth-place first-innings position and first-place second-innings position is difficult to ignore. It doesn’t, on its own, prove that New Zealand pitches become flat as matches progress. But it does challenge the idea that seam-friendly conditions necessarily mean a sustained advantage for bowlers.

There is a distinction, too, between a pitch offering movement early in a match and one remaining difficult to bat on for five days. A surface can reward disciplined seam bowling in the opening session while still allowing batters to prosper once they have negotiated the initial challenge. But New Zealand's second-innings figures suggest that visitors shouldn’t automatically assume the early conditions will define the entire Test. More importantly, unlike in a few other countries, New Zealand still provides reasonably good chances to batters till the last session of the fifth day.

For India, who lost by 10 and seven wickets the two Tests they had last played in New Zealand (in 2020), that distinction should matter. The constant disclaimer here is the factor of overhead conditions, which across two Tests is small yet significant. Which is why the most pragmatic way to understand New Zealand’s venues is not to label them seamer-friendly or batter-friendly, but to recognise that both descriptions can be true at different stages of the same game.

The ball may talk early, but runs too could come later on. For visiting batters thus, the real test is not merely surviving the conditions that New Zealand is known for, but to recognise when those conditions have changed—and making the most of the opportunity that follows.