“First and foremostly for Searsy to have a sort of lengthened period of time where he’s been fully fit and playing consecutive games… so to play an entire series is a win and you know forget about the performance side of things,” Walter said at his post-series press conference.

“Just that is the win but you know seeing how hard he worked in the World Cup [as a travelling reserve] and the things that he was working on and then to see it roll out in the competitive environment here in New Zealand like again is a huge positive. I know that he’s a hard worker and he’s hard on himself but you can certainly look back on this series and be sort of very proud of his performance.”

“He’s world-class and one of the best bowlers in the world for a number of years now,” Sears said of Ferguson during the home series against South Africa. “After he bowled, having conversations around what the length needed to be and where to set the field and those kinds of things – it was really helpful and just leaning on him.”

After Ferguson left the New Zealand side to spend time with his newborn son, Sears stepped up as their chief enforcer, taking figures of 1 for 22 in his four overs in Wellington before closing out the series with 2 for 37 in Christchurch. Though the Black Caps ended up losing the series from being 2-1 up, in the absence of first-choice players who are away at the IPL or PSL, Walter said that the exposure to the top level was vital for their emerging talent.

“There’s never any bad experience right? As long as we put it in context and so for these guys to go out there twice sort of chasing, to be put under that pressure at international.. It was very different to the domestic level, against good bowling line-ups,” Walter said. And you sort of really find out about yourself and where your game is and more importantly like what you need to do sort of to get yourself up to speed. So these series will be invaluable for the guys who have played in it, specifically [for] the guys who haven’t played a hell of a lot for New Zealand.”

While the seniors will continue to be away at the IPL or PSL, Walter is looking forward to seeing how the fringe players respond when they tour Bangladesh for three ODIs and as many T20Is in April.

“Again it’s sort of an exciting prospect for a group to be going to Bangladesh with a lot of similar faces,” Walter said. “But another opportunity from an inexperienced group [NZ A are also set to visit Sri Lanka] to go into foreign conditions in the subcontinent against another good team in their own conditions and ultimately see what we’ve learned in the last little bit go learn some more in different conditions and just continue to grow.”