The four-match Test series with England was shared, every game ending as a draw, and of 35 first-class fixtures, 14 were won, 20 drawn and only one lost.
By contrast, England had played full series both at home and abroad in every summer and winter since the end of the war, though with mixed results.
Centuries by Len Hutton and Denis Compton ensured a large score, but England made only 307 runs on the first day, Cowie taking five wickets, and Burtt mopped up the tail on the Monday morning to claim five also.
All the top seven batsmen made runs, with Hutton making 73 and Edrich 78, and Reg Simpson took advantage of a tiring attack to score his first Test century, with 103.
New Zealand, without Mooney, for whom Reid deputised as wicketkeeper, and with Rabone unable to bowl, won the toss for the first time in the series and batted.
In 32 first-class matches, the New Zealand tourists won 13 times and lost only once, when they were caught on a drying pitch at Oxford without Cowie, their player best able to exploit such conditions.
The MCC match, one of the set-pieces of the cricket calendar, saw a slow draw with New Zealand rescued by a seventh wicket partnership of 176 by Mooney and Rabone.
Northamptonshire eked a draw out of a high-scoring match, but New Zealand dominated the game in Glasgow against Scotland and Cowie's six second-innings wickets were clean bowled.
After the third Test, the return match with Yorkshire was very tight, with the county left to score 169 in 100 minutes and hanging on 61 short with the last available batsmen together when time ran out.
The second match with Glamorgan was badly affected by rain with the New Zealanders in a commanding position, thanks to a big century by Wallace and six wickets for Cresswell.
Kent scraped a draw after Hadlee did not enforce the follow-on, and joint county champions Middlesex batted very unevenly, and lost by nine wickets as Sutcliffe scored 110 out of 157 in 95 minutes.
The batsmen were the big successes of the New Zealand side and Donnelly and Sutcliffe finished fifth and eighth in the English first-class averages for the season.
In the Tests, Smith, who played in only two matches, headed the averages, but again the aggregates were dominated by Donnelly and Sutcliffe, each scoring more than 400 runs when no other batsman managed 200.
New Zealand's lack of international fixtures before the 1949 series was not repeated and the nucleus of the side remained in place for matches through to 1952 against West Indies and South Africa, as well as for the MCC visit in 1950–51.
One consequence of the domination of bat over ball in the 1949 series was that, from 1950 onwards, Test matches in England were lengthened to five days against all opponents.