OPINION: And so we arrive at the end of another long summer of cricket for the Blackcaps. The rain that brought a frustrating halt to a dominant performance against South Africa in Hamilton was a sign of things to come for us, but not the team.
The best players will continue chasing the sun, first to India for the Indian Premier League which begins next week, and then over to England for the ICC Champions Trophy.
When do these guys get a break? And that's just the players.
I caught up with Blackcaps Coach Mike Hesson at the New Zealand Cricket awards earlier this week, and after working for months on end he was a relieved to tell me he'll be taking a week off. A week?! He made it sound like a sabbatical!
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Being an international cricket coach is a brutal job. Players get injured, they might get dropped from time to time or they get time off. Not the coaches. The coaches go on every tour, they never miss a day. I have no idea how they do it. To any normal person, it's unsustainable.
Finally, it seems Hesson agrees. He's coming up five years in the job, and he knows you don't do this job forever. He told me he's pencilled into the schedule parts of future tours he'll miss while someone else takes the reigns.
T20 matches would seem the obvious matches to skip, but he admitted there'd be the odd one-dayer here and there - looking at all formats of the game.
So we can expect to see batting coach Craig McMillan and bowling coach Shane Jurgenson do some of the heavy lifting in times to come, and perhaps some of the domestic coaches will be brought into the environment as well.
That might seem alarming concept for some fans, but it shouldn't be. You only have to look across the Tasman to see how Cricket Australia is successfully managing the chaotic international cricket schedule for its coaches.
While Darren Lehmann was in India preparing the Test team last month, Former opening batsman and WA coach Justin Langer was appointed caretaker coach for a home T20 series against Sri Lanka.
He was assisted by Ricky Ponting and Jason Gillespie. It's the ideal way to juggle the schedule, but at the same time it gives other coaches a taste of international cricket.
Hesson needs these breaks to keep him fresh right through until his contract ends after the 2019 World Cup, but it's also a smart move for New Zealand Cricket.
Succession planning is vitally important, but it's something the Blackcaps have never really had among the coaching ranks. In recent times, the job's been given to the best applicant following an international search. It's about time that changed.
Just as New Zealand Rugby and the All Blacks have a developed a "hire from within" mantra, it's good business practice for New Zealand Cricket and the Blackcaps to do the same. If years of intellectual property are at risk of walking out the door with the coach, then it's vital to safeguard against it.
As Hesson said himself, "you can't do this job forever". So who would ultimately be the one to replace him?
Andrew Gourdie is a sports reporter for Newshub.
