An inexperienced captain beaten down and battered by pressure

Day 4, Trent Bridge

The prelude

It's one of those beautiful summer's days that seem to come around about once a fortnight here. It's a perfect day for cricket and thousands are streaming down the roads leading to Trent Bridge.

They're either mad or they've pre-bought tickets because this could be over before lunch.

New Zealand's only chance of stretching this deep into the day is if Jacob Oram hits his straps and Gareth Hopkins, the out-of-form Dan Vettori and Kyle Mills can hang around with him.

You can see that the sunlight hasn't added a lot of optimism. A New Zealand press colleague and I, over a couple of steaming bowls of jalfrezi last night, came to the horrible realisation that this country's test stocks had fallen so dramatically that day three almost felt like a minor victory – this despite the fact they finished 177-5 and 64 runs short of making England bat again.

The morning

Forget St Jude – it is St Jake, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.

Worst fears are realised. Hopkins manages to outside edge an in-swinger – not an easy feat – and Vettori slices meekly to gully.

Bryan Waddle, on BBC's Test Match Special, sums him up as looking like "a man with his fingers in too many dykes".

It's absolutely right and it is no second-guessing because we have been saying the following for some time.

This should have been Stephen Fleming's valedictory tour before passing the baton to Vettori and heading off into the sunset. However, he was crudely emasculated and his pique was enough to convince him that an extension to his family would be a better way of spending this winter.

This is the result: an inexperienced captain, and a good man to boot, beaten down and battered by the pressure of leading his side in the most high-profile back-to-back test series in years, having to be the best bowler and expected to contribute runs in pressure-cooker situations down the order.
All the optimism of Hamilton in March has been stripped away and was it any wonder that when he shuffled off Trent Bridge just now he looked a broken man.

Mills record of under-achievement with the bat continued when he drove lamely at Ryan Sidebottom and O'Brien (how on God's Green Earth did he score a century in Wellington club cricket recently?) produced a carbon copy.

Then there was Jake, smiting two big sixes and pulling viciously to bring up 50... but wait, Chris Martin forgets to run back for two and is left exposed to James Anderson. One ball is all it takes and it is game over.

Even by the bottom-feeding standards of New Zealand, this is a capitulation that will haunt the memories of those here to witness it.

What an injustice to those who paid money to watch this today.

If this all sounds a bit mournful, well that is the way it is intended – a very, very sad day for New Zealand cricket.

The afternoon and evening

Not sure yet but it won't involve watching cricket.

Farewell.