Just when British mountaineers have scaled uncharted Himalayan peaks the England cricket team managed to plumb new depths that would make the Puerto Rican Trench seem like Alan Mullally's footmarks, losing the second Test to New Zealand by nine wickets an hour after tea on the fourth day.

Well done New Zealand, but for England this was as bad as it has been. The series stands at one-all but in terms of morale the Kiwis are flying.

England required a further 65 runs yesterday to even make New Zealand bat again with, notionally, six second-innings wickets in hand but with the captain unable to bat because of a fractured finger. They lost two wickets in adding just 20 runs, before an unlikely but combative seventh-wicket stand between Chris Read (37) and Andy Caddick (45) added 78.

But with England out for 229, New Zealand required just 58 to win, and they did so for the loss of Matthew Horne.

This was a landmark in the history of New Zealand cricket and a significant comeback after their loss in the first Test at Edgbaston, where they were handed a winning situation and lost their nerve.

To bounce back in the manner they did showers them with credit for their tenacity, resilience and sense of pride. Yet, for all that New Zealand put into the game - and in what was essentially a utilitarian performance there was much to admire in Horne's courage and modesty, the versatility of Chris Cairns, enthusiasm of Dion Nash, and the apparent maturity at such a tender age of Daniel Vettori - England, bound by the system under which they operate, were architects of their own downfall. A side that was supposed to be uniting under a new, forthright captain, looked fragmented well before the young opener Matthew Bell gained the distinction of clipping Caddick for the winning boundary.

Incidents, seemingly of small consequence in themselves, by the end had taken on the appearance of metaphors for the state of the team.

There was Alex Tudor's sicknote before the match, for example, in which it transpired, that Edgbaston's hero was to undergo a scan on his knee. There followed Angus Fraser's Wednesday trundle up the motorway as cover when it was hard to credit that the preferred bowler Chris Silverwood could not have been brought from Scarborough. There was Hussain appointing his own understudy on the spur of the moment. There is no imperative to appoint a vice-captain per se. And then there was the new coach Duncan Fletcher, who when interviewed for the job ought to have been told that he would be required with immediate effect. His presence would at least have shown a sense of urgency on the part of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The messages being sent out are of a shambolic organisation.

On the field it was England's batsmen that cost the game, not a man-jack, apart from Hussain, was able to demonstrate the staying power and determination to match that of Horne. The first innings was abject, mitigated only by the perfect seam-bowling conditions that stripped naked flawed techniques. But the second innings was a catalogue of ill-chosen strokes: from Mark Butcher, just before an interval; from Alec Stewart just two deliveries after Vettori had altered his angle of attack; and from Mark Ramprakash who last winter earned respect from the hardest opponents in the game, only to be psyched out by his own intertia here. Thorpe, who took over from Hussain as captain, was exempt to an extent, having received two differing but equally malevolent deliveries.

The Kiwis knew the hard work had been done on previous days and that victory was there yesterday provided they kept going. Inside an hour Geoff Allott had seen Dean Headley caught at first slip and Aftab Habib at second following a pathetic dab. Read and Caddick then produced some of the best batting of the match. The tail was open now, and although Mullally reached double figures, and Phil Tufnell survived a catch to second slip that the third umpire was unable to confirm had carried, and another that Astle dropped, Allott finished things, Caddick becoming Stephen Fleming's second catch of the day.