The jury is still out on whether the series should have gone ahead, but that debate ceases to matter really with the players back on the plane to South Africa, with Shukri Conrad able to claim his first T20I bilateral series win away from home. Let’s take a moment to look at five key talking points from the tour.

Connor Esterhuizen – where to from here?
Poor Connor Esterhuizen! The Gauteng youngster who has played SA20 for MI Cape Town and Pretoria Capitals finally got his chance to play for the Proteas, and boy did he take it. Wearing the gloves and batting at the top of the order, Esterhuizen finished the series as the leading run scorer with 200 well-made runs.
He showed quality and the ability to learn and adapt on the fly.

As it stands, he now boasts the highest batting average of any South African T20I player. And yet despite his heroic efforts, he may well never play again for the Proteas.
That sounds like a crazy thing to say, but consider for a moment that Esterhuizen is probably still not even ranked as one of South Africa’s top five T20I wicketkeepers. Right now, the undisputed number one is Quinton de Kock.
At the recently completed World Cup, Donny Ferreira was selected as the number two. When Ferreira was injured, the role of reserve keeper was handed to Ryan Rickelton, who acquitted himself well.
If those are the top three keepers in South Africa, you then need to ask where do the likes of Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Kyle Verreyne fit in? And even though he has retired from international cricket, don’t forget the skills of Heinrich Klaasen. That’s some fantastic talent to pick through.
Esterhuizen did everything that was asked of him, and he certainly did his credentials no harm, but let’s not kid ourselves, for now, he is still a long way away from the first XI. Still not even 25-years-old, he has time on his side at least.

Missed opportunity
The idea of pairing the men’s and women’s tours seemed like an inspired one. It’s a concept that will surely become more of a feature in the future as it works so well for the T20 format.
It’s great exposure for the women’s game; it makes for a compelling day out for the fans, and there are surely economic benefits for all involved by running the games back-to-back.
This should have been a massive event for CSA and their Kiwi counterparts, but by removing most of the stars from the men’s teams, they did themselves a genuine disservice.
The reality is, the women’s series, which featured some of the biggest names from the female game (think Laura Wolvaardt, Tazmin Brits, Amelia Kerr, Sophie Devine, and Nonkululeko Mlaba) should have been the headline act.
There was a host of top ten-ranked stars playing in the women’s series, while for the men, the real talent was all at home chilling, or over in India preparing for the IPL.
In an ideal world, priorities and talent availability should reflect when picking the headliner and the curtain raiser – it shouldn’t come down to old-school gender stereotypes.
Smith and De Zorzi – wrong horses for the course?
As much as the teams that did battle in New Zealand were understrength, they still boasted some players who were expected to step up and lead the way.
Two of those players were Jason Smith and Tony de Zorzi. Smith has been on the Proteas periphery for a while (he made his Proteas debut in August 2024). And while he has never really done much wrong, he has also never really done much either.

He has now played three ODIs and 11 T20Is, where he averages 44 and 20.66, respectively. They are not bad numbers, but also not exactly numbers to get excited about. Smith was in the squad that went to the World Cup, while De Zorzi was initially selected before crying out injured.

New Zealand was meant to be their chance to step up and play leading roles. They may not be the most experienced duo around, but in the context of the team that was on tour, they were big players.

De Zorzi ended with an average of 10.6 and Smith with 13. Granted, the wickets were not the easiest to play on with the ball doing quite a bit early on, but both players will look at the tour as a disappointment.

Not all players are made for the T20I format, and it could simply be the case that these two are destined for greater success in the longer format of the game (De Zorzi already has two Test tons to his credit).

How much was really learned?

The idea behind the trip was learning. It was evident from the very outset that South Africa would not take their best (or even their second best) squad to New Zealand, but the intention was spelled out that it would be a chance for youngsters to shine and to test themselves at the international level.
That is an argument that could hold water, but it is dependent on one thing – the opposition you play needs to be at an international level.

Connor Esterhuizen shone for South Africa, but the reality is that he faced far better opposition in SA20 than he did on tour to New Zealand. Dressing a club cricketer in a national team shirt doesn’t suddenly make him a better player.

Esterhuizen, and several others can rightly feel proud of their achievements (because you can only play the opposition that are in front of you), but for Shukri Conrad and his fellow management team, do they really have anything that they wouldn’t have learned from watching their players in the SA20?
Time to kick back and enjoy some IPL

The reason that the New Zealand tour felt like a compromise was that it was. Crammed in between the World Cup and the IPL, it is becoming increasingly hard to find time for old-school international cricket to be played.

The South African season started with the SA20. The West Indies tour was cut short to accommodate the needs of SA20 and the World Cup. The IP will now last two months, and most of South Africa’s big-name stars will be in action in India.

It will be a while before the team is all back home and able to turn their focus to international cricket once again – it will be in September when the Proteas convene again for a home series against Australia.

The window for Internationals is shrinking all the time, but that is not to say that the levels of entertainment of the audacious nature of cricket is in decline. The IPL will be a thrill – enjoy it!