A calculation was doing the rounds before the Hamilton debacle that looks even crazier in retrospect. Had England achieved a 3-0 whitewash in the Tests against New Zealand, they would have leapfrogged back to second place in the ICC's rankings. This tells you quite a lot about the potential for discrepancy between games played on paper and those played in real life, but it might also help explain the strange mixture of delusion and introspection that seems to have taken hold of the England dressing room.
The delusion first. After defeat at Seddon Park, Michael Vaughan claimed "everyone bowled reasonably well," by which he presumably meant everyone except his two most experienced bowlers. It's true that Steve Harmison only conceded 24 runs in the second innings, but then he only bowled four overs (so did Jacob Oram, incidentally, and he took one for two). Meanwhile, Kevin Pietersen referred to his 203-minute 42 as one of his best innings. Wrong, Kevin: your 285-minute 158 against Australia at The Oval was one of your best innings. Your 42 was a joyless crawl that epitomised England's problem. Oh, and Harmison himself told Nasser Hussain that playing for England was the most important thing in his life, moments after he had told him his family was, well, the most important thing in his life.
Which brings us to the introspection. Harmison's interview will go down as a classic of its kind. The Spin defies anyone to think less of him as a human being after listening to his equivocation, just as it defies anyone to think more of him as an opening bowler. His mind is clearly not on his well-paid job (almost £10,000 a Test wicket in 2007, according to the Sunday Times) and he must make way for either Stuart Broad or, if they want another endless tail, James Anderson in Wellington tomorrow night.
Others, too, appear to be wrapped up in doubt. Pietersen himself, usually the arch-optimist, was asked before the start of the fifth day's play whether he thought England could win. He hesitated, then revealed there would be a positive result one way or another. It was hardly a quote to curdle New Zealand blood.
Vaughan admits there is a crisis of confidence, so why don't England study a video of Ian Bell's second-innings half-century before they repeat the same mistakes at the Basin Reserve? Freed from the fear of defeat, he actually hit two sixes (he had hit only seven in 61 previous Test innings and none at all in the recent one-day series). Jeetan Patel, who openly wondered why England had allowed him to put the ball where he wanted during their appalling first innings, was briefly made to look like the novice he is.
And, yes, it was appalling. There have been words of praise for the fact that England managed to last 173 overs, but some of that must be seen in the context of the growth of the Indian Premier League: anything that harks back to a less frenetic age feels comforting at the moment. The truth, as Patel said, is that England attempted to take no initiative whatsoever - or as Bell said: "We were guilty of sitting in a little too much." Even half a run more per over would have got them close to first-innings parity, at which point New Zealand's collapse might have taken on match-losing proportions. Instead, you could smell the collective lack of confidence, all the more pungent for lasting two days.
Is all this to deny New Zealand the praise they deserve? It's not supposed to. Daniel Vettori was outstanding in all three of his roles, Stephen Fleming showed what was possible on that pitch with a bit of timing and Kyle Mills put Harmison and Matthew Hoggard to shame.
There has been a feeling on these blogs and the over-by-over coverage that the English cricket world - players, press and fans - underestimate New Zealand unfairly. But some of this underestimation is based on evidence. Since the start of their tour of England in 2004 and this one, it is true they have won a decent-looking 10 Tests out of 27, but six of those wins were against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and another two came at home to West Indies. They have failed to win a single meaningful Test overseas in all that time. Take away Fleming and Vettori and their remaining nine Hamilton players have an average of 18 caps each. They are ranked seventh in the world and are without Shane Bond or Jesse Ryder.
As Chris Cairns put it on bigstarcricket.com last week: "If you lined the sides up, statistically you would see that England are considerably ahead and it would be a shock if we saw anything other than an England victory. It would be disappointing for England to either draw or lose the series. The pressure is on England to make sure they win convincingly. This England side is very well balanced in all departments and I would certainly have England as favourites."
It's not old-style arrogance to say that England, even an England on a downward Test curve, should have expected a better result than this. As things stand, though, Vaughan's men are now a draw or a defeat away from going eight Tests without a victory, their longest stretch since the dark days of 1996-97. If that happens, the Vaughan/Moores axis could be in serious trouble.
Extract taken from the Spin, theguardian.com's weekly take on the world of cricket.
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