CRICKET/ One-day-series: For 15 glorious minutes yesterday evening, as the sun burst through for the first time to lighten a grey day and Steve Harmison pushed the speed gun into the mid-90s to take three New Zealand wickets in eight balls, England looked like world beaters. Which just goes to show how things can flatter to deceive.
For the other 143 minutes that this latest NatWest match lasted they performed like novices, given another lesson in the one-day arts, following the one dished out by West Indies on Sunday.
The game was over with the sun still higher in the sky than the redundant floodlights which shone incongruously all afternoon. New Zealand cantered home by seven wickets inside 18 overs after a five-wicket haul for the left-arm seam bowler James Franklin had helped blow England away for 101.
The whole match had lasted one ball beyond half way, the England total their sixth lowest anywhere, their third lowest in this country and their worst for almost 30 years batting first.
Only three times have they been dismissed in a full match in fewer deliveries than the 197 it took yesterday. It is utterly disheartening, the plummet from Test-match top dogs almost incredible.
Marcus Trescothick's 14 was the highest score of the innings, the total hauled from rock bottom only by a last-wicket stand between Harmison and James Anderson that took it from 78 for nine into three figures.
In reply New Zealand had knocked off almost half the runs before Harmison removed Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle and Hamish Marshall to give England the faintest glimmer of hope.
But no side has ever successfully defended such a small total in an uninterrupted match and, much as Darren Gough puffed out his chest and tried to recapture the past, the support for Harmison was never sufficiently threatening seriously to harm the chances of a comfortable win for the visitors.
As the crowd drifted home to an early meal, Anderson was out in the middle undergoing a remedial session with the team's bowling coach Troy Cooley. Diligent it may be but it is still a sorry sight.
There was more to this latest disaster than the bowling, however.
England have now lost 20 wickets for 248 in their last 71 overs, or one every 21 deliveries.
On each occasion they have been put in to bat they have encountered helpful conditions for the seamers and lost the crucial early wickets of Trescothick and Michael Vaughan.
Without Andy Flintoff, there is simply not the talent or experience through the order to recover from that.
Franklin recovered well from an early calculated assault from Trescothick and bowled his 10 overs straight through. He even came within a whisker of a hat-trick when, having got rid of Ian Blackwell and Ashley Giles, he saw the next ball to Gough pitch minimally outside leg-stump.
But he, along with Jacob Oram and Chris Cairns, was assisted by some indifferent shot selection, not least by Trescothick, who heaved rustically across the line and was bowled, his ambition running away with him at times.
Once Trescothick and Vaughan were gone, no player seemed prepared or, indeed, to know how to occupy the crease, regroup, see off the initial hardness in the white ball and then take it on from there. They are not coming remotely close to using up the available overs and the bowlers, consequently, are being given no chance.
Surely now there must be some concession that the selection is faulty. It has been a characteristic in the past that bloody-mindedness comes into the equation, a determination to be proved right. Thus, yesterday, after the Trent Bridge debacle, the only change to a side that demanded an extra batsman was to substitute a spin bowler, Giles, for an all-rounder Rikki Clarke. This, in itself, was a bizarre choice.
Against West Indies, the spin option, had it been required would have been Blackwell. Now, with Giles in the side, brought in to play in a floodlit match in overcast, damp conditions where the ball was certain to offer help for the seamers, there was never a chance he would be required to bowl.
This in turn begs the question as to why Robert Key, a substantially better batsman in prime form this season, was not preferred.
And, if a bowling option was required, then why was it not Sajid Mahmood, or even Clarke? There can be no justification for Blackwell's inclusion.
Furthermore, there has to be an admission that the strategy of both Vaughan and Trescothick opening in helpful bowling conditions is counter productive when there is little to back them up further down the order.
Guardian Service
ENGLAND INNINGS
M E Trescothick b Oram 14
M P Vaughan b Franklin 12
G O Jones b Oram 5
A J Strauss c Oram b Franklin 8
P D Collingwood c Hopkins b Franklin 2
A McGrath c Hopkins b Oram 12
I D Blackwell lbw b Franklin 5
A F Giles c Hopkins b Franklin 0
D Gough c Fleming b Cairns 7
S J Harmison not out 13
J M Anderson b Vettori 11
Extras lb4 w2 nb6 pens 0 12
Total (32.5 overs) ... 101
Fall: 1-24 2-30 3-37 4-44 5-51 6-65 7-65 8-76 9-78
Bowling: Oram 10 0 23 3; Franklin 10 1 42 5; Cairns 10 2 27 1; Styris 2 1 4 0; Vettori 0.5 0 1 1
New Zealand Innings
S P Fleming c Gough b Harmison 31
N J Astle lbw b Harmison 15
H J H Marshall c Giles b Harmison 5
S B Styris not out 23
C D McMillan not out 15
Extras lb7 w2 nb5 pens 0 14
Total: 3 wkts (17.2 overs) ... 103
Fall: 1-48 2-57 3-66
Did Not Bat: J D P Oram, G J Hopkins, C L Cairns, D L Vettori, C Z Harris, J E C Franklin.
Bowling: Gough 6 0 30 0; Harmison 7 0 38 3; Anderson 4.2 0 28 0.
New Zealand beat England by 7 wkts
