Captain Brendon McCullum is drawing encouragement from New Zealand’s narrow series loss to South Africa at home in March as his side prepares for a daunting two-Test series in the republic.

The weakened Black Caps are rank outsiders ahead of the first Test against the Proteas starting in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Without injured bowlers Daniel Vettori and Tim Southee and unavailable batsmen Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder, world No.8 ranked New Zealand are given little hope of toppling the world’s best side on home soil.

McCullum, who replaced Taylor as skipper following a messy process last month, said those events weren’t on the players’ minds.

Instead, the 31-year-old, who will captain the Test team for the first time, preferred looking further back to the 1-0 home series loss against a similar South African outfit 10 months ago.

“We pushed them quite hard in that series. We were written off heading into that as well,” McCullum said.

“A lot of guys learned a lot about their own games in that series and we’ve taken some heart out of it but we know that South Africa have improved since then as well so we’ll have to go up a gear.”

New Zealand drew the rain-affected first Test in Dunedin before being thrashed inside three days at Hamilton. The third Test was drawn in Wellington courtesy of a fighting fourth-innings century from Kane Williamson.

“At least we’ve got some form in the book to look back on and say that we competed at times,” McCullum said.

“We’ve just got to make sure we get better and compete for longer in this series.”

The New Zealanders were surprised at the number of cracks in the Newlands pitch a day out from the Test, prompting McCullum to consider playing both his spinners, Jeetan Patel and the uncapped Bruce Martin.

Trent Boult and Doug Bracewell are first choice seamers, meaning veteran paceman Chris Martin could be contesting for a position with namesake Bruce while left-arm pacemen Neil Wagner and Mitchell McClenaghan are other options.

James Franklin is likely to play as a backup seam option who bats at seven behind the middle order of Daniel Flynn and wicketkeeper BJ Watling.

McCullum confirmed that he would open the batting alongside Martin Guptill while Dean Brownlie will bat at four after Williamson following the knee injury which ended Peter Fulton’s tour.