Wellington’s Basin is a wonderful place for batsmen to fill their boots ...

TIM SOUTHEE could not have said it better in the build-up to this second Test against the Proteas in New Zealand’s capital city.

“You can’t beat the Basin on a fine day,” stated the blondhaired Kiwi fast bowler.

Southee was certainly on point with the opening day played under crystal blue skies and not a hint of the famed Wellington wind.

I did not have the pleasure of being at the Basin Reserve yesterday. I was instead blearyeyed and curled under a blanket on my couch at home watching the Test in the wee hours of the night.

But listening to Ian Smith on commentary when a drone displayed what Wellingtonians call “HQ” and it’s scenic surrounds in all its splendour, with the former Test wicket-keeper exclaiming “This is Wellington! Wellington!” immediately took me back when I was there for the corresponding Test five years ago.

The Basin Reserve has a rustic charm that has seen it rated “the best cricket ground” in New Zealand by the country’s leading scribes. It is has a great sense of history with its old scoreboard and popular grass banks, while the New Zealand Cricket museum located on its premises also adds a certain element of grandeur.

There also not many Test venues – if any – around the world that operates on nonmatch days as a public park with cyclists using its thoroughfare en-route to work on a daily basis.

But any cricket ground worth its entrance fee is judged on the 22 yards of parched earth in the centre. And it is for this very reason that I adore the old Basin.

Captains routinely send the opposition in on a surface that bears more than a touching resemblance to the outfield – like Proteas skipper Faf du Plessis did yesterday – before it transforms into a batsmen’s haven for the duration of the Test match.

Recent Tests at the venue have afforded batsmen to “fill their boots” over the days two, three and four and South Africa’s batting unit should take confidence from this.

Although the outcome may have already been decided by the time you read this with the Proteas batting overnight, but Bangladesh’s 595/8 that preceded the Kiwis 539 just two months ago providing ample evidence that conditions for batting will be the most favourable over the coming days.

Bangladeshi all-rounder Shakib-al-Hasan struck a double century on the second day of that Test, while other impressive batting feats after the first day has passed includes the now-retired Adam Voges’s 239 for Australia last year while the legendary Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara struck a beautiful 203 in 2015.

However, the locals will never forget a memorable couple of days back in 2014 when former skipper Brendon McCullum became the first Black Caps triple centurion with a masterful 302.

It certainly bodes well for the Proteas.

There are batsmen within the Proteas line-up that need to spend some time at the crease. Stephen Cook has already wasted his opportunity and the debate around his position will start once again, but others like Hashim Amla, JP Duminy, Temba Bavuma and Quinton de Kock will hope it is only the wind, which will inevitably return, that blows off their bails.