The moment NZ turned their fortunes around

As has rarely happened in the 138-year Ashes history, the arrival of Australia’s Test squad in the UK last June was greeted as something of an anti-climax among the famously fickle British press as well as for sizeable portions of the cricket public.

Not due to any diminution in the rivalry between the home of Empire and its former brattish colony.

Rather it was because the curtain raiser for that five-Test campaign had been Brendon McCullum’s Black Caps, whose capacity to play entertainingly combative cricket with a twinkle in their eyes and a smile on their faces had utterly entranced the game’s homeland.

Cook and McCullum sharing the trophy // Getty Images

It was into this bliss cloud that the Australians rolled, initially bemused by the heartfelt questioning of the spirit in which they intended to play the upcoming Tests, and ultimately exasperated by the endless unfavourable comparisons with the Kiwis and the constant cat-calling from the local crowds.

But McCullum, the man under whose leadership the Black Caps have challenged the sporting truism that nice guys invariably finish last, rejects suggestions that the humility and grace shown by his players within a ruthless professional sport is confected or, even worse, a calculated exercise in brand management.

"It has to be authentic, and it develops organically," McCullum told cricket.com.au in a one-on-one interview conducted recently.

"We never set out to be the nice guys of world cricket, and we certainly never refer to ourselves as the nice guys of world cricket.

"I guess others have bestowed a tag on us but we just go about our work.

"We’re just a group of mates representing our country, trying to be as good as we can on the international stage, fiercely competitive but incredibly respectful of both our opposition and also the game.

'Nice guy' tag was imposed upon us: McCullum

"I think that has developed over a period of time, and if people want to call us evangelical then that’s fine, and if they want to call us nice guys that’s fine as well."

While that collective persona has indeed grown "organically" as McCullum is want to say, as he points out it did not drop roots and sprout leaves overnight.

Rather, it is the end result of four distinct chapters that stretch back over more than seven years.

And which led McCullum and his men to look deep within themselves, and to bravely make a united stand to develop as a team with not only a vision of where it wanted to go, but how it should be clad and perceived if and when it got there.

The first episode played out at The Oval in 2008.

When New Zealand allrounder Grant Elliott was run out after colliding mid-pitch with England seam bowler Ryan Sidebottom during a one-day international, and England’s then skipper Paul Collingwood opted not to withdraw his team’s legitimate if opportunistic appeal.

Shades of the Mitchell Starc-Ben Stokes incident at Lord’s earlier this year, which McCullum later wrote in his UK newspaper column that Australia’s captain Steve Smith might one day regret for not having taken the chance "to strike a blow for the spirit of cricket".

WATCH: Stokes out obstructing the field

Not that McCullum and his team are trying to unilaterally impose their values onto their opponents.

"We don’t expect other people to play the same way we do," he said.

"Everyone’s entitled to play whatever way they want – Australia obviously plays a lot more fiercely than we do, in terms of their emotions and their verbals that they entertain and that’s fine.

"So everyone’s entitled to play their own way and we’re certainly not righteous in our stance that the game needs to be played in this manner, but it works for us."

At the time of the Elliott incident, McCullum’s then skipper Daniel Vettori had voiced misgivings about Collingwood’s actions and the need for on-field participants taking some moral leadership, only to find himself facing a similar ethical dilemma when the nations next met the following year.

This time, during the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy in Johannesburg, Collingwood had endured a hostile spell of fast bowling and, at over’s end, left his crease to examine the pitch when McCullum (in his former guise as wicketkeeper) noted ‘over’ had not been called and rolled the ball into the stumps.

Technically, the England captain was run out but - grasping the opportunity of which he had earlier spoken – Vettori addressed his teammates as they formed a huddle awaiting the third umpire’s inevitable verdict, and convinced them their quarry should be spared.

Even though they were in the midst of a lucrative international tournament ranked second in importance to only the World Cup at that stage.

Had former Australian ‘keeper Brad Haddin been in the vicinity, he would no doubt have expressed his unease at the fact the Kiwis were playing far too nicely as was his observation during the most recent World Cup campaign.

In striking a blow for decency and in defiance of cinema stereotypes, the men in black had become the good guys.

But that new-found lustre was tarnished during the 2011 ICC World Cup on the sub-continent when, in the heat of a sudden-death quarter-final against highly fancied South Africa the New Zealanders took aim at the Proteas’ Faf du Plessis after he was involved in the crucial run out of his batting partner AB de Villiers.

As they celebrated the breakthrough, skipper Vettori and other teammates – including 12th man Kyle Mills who had sprinted on to the field at the fall of the wicket with drinks and some wisdom he was keen to share – tore into du Plessis, who responded by giving Mills a tempestuous shove.

It was an unedifying episode that bore an ill-tempered resemblance to the ugly showdown between Australia and South Africa players on the tense final day of last year’s Test in Cape Town, and one that saw Vettori, du Plessis and Mills all heavily fined.

Things got heated at the World Cup // Getty Images

On the plus side, it also led to a vow from many in the NZ team that the time had come to ensure they acted within their own self-imposed code of conduct even when match scenarios dictated they were swept up in the macho maelstrom of competition.

The final stop on the road to enlightenment came soon after McCullum controversially assumed the captaincy from Ross Taylor, who himself had been appointed as Vettori’s successor only to be removed in a polarising political putsch.

Desperate to find the success that might help to dress the deep wounds that had been opened up within New Zealand Cricket, McCullum led his team to South Africa in early 2013 where – in their opening Test at Newlands – he won the toss, chose to bat and watched his men utterly implode.

Bowled out for 45 in less than 20 overs on his first day as a Test captain.

Two runs fewer and only eight deliveries longer than Australia’s humiliation at the same venue 14 months earlier.

As many a self-help manual prescribes, one must hit rock bottom before the upward climb can begin.

The scoreboard did not make for good reading // Getty Images

But rather than bemoan a captaincy tenure that could conceivably have ended with the Black Caps’ disastrous defeat inside three days, McCullum took the opportunity to begin a process that would eventually restore a sense of pride, a sense of purpose, and a sense of fun.

Which – along with the success that has seen them scale the unprecedented heights of a World Cup Final berth and seven consecutive Test series without defeat (leading into the current Trans-Tasman contest) – has characterised NZ’s cricket under the once hard-nosed ‘keeper from Dunedin.

"It wasn’t our finest moment (the Cape Town defeat) but what it did do was it allowed us to strip things back and during that time we just had to be pretty honest and pretty brutal with ourselves," McCullum revealed.

"And I think the perception of us (among the New Zealand and broader cricket public) and the perception that we had of ourselves was quite different.

"We had to try and re-align those a little bit more, and we had to be a bit honest with ourselves as well.”

"That we weren’t performing as well as what we should, that we had no real soul about our team.

"We weren’t purposeful in our time that we had as cricketers and we needed to make some changes.

"And that’s what we’ve tried to do over the last little while and I think now we’ve got a group of guys that I would happily introduce to anyone in the world.

"They are great ambassadors for this team and our country, and they play for the right reasons.

"They play with a smile on their face, they are very humble, they are very respectful and to add to that they are bloody good cricketers.

"We’ll have our challenges over the next little while as we have so far on this tour, but I know these guys that we have will be able to bounce back as well because we’re good cricketers and also good people."

The nice guys might have finished second in the World Cup tournament they so successfully co-hosted.

But the rights to the Trans-Tasman Trophy remain undecided heading into the history-making day-night Test that begins in Adelaide on Friday afternoon, and they can end this tour as equal winners if things go their way with the pink ball.

Not that you’ll catch them cussing and carrying on if they don’t.