Cricket: Black Caps have to lift for one-dayers

By MARK GEENTY

NOTTINGHAM - The black one-day uniform has never looked better for the New Zealanders as the gulf between their test and one-day performances continues to widen.

Coach John Bracewell has plenty of thinking to do with the test side after they shot back down to sixth in the world rankings when England completed a 3-0 whitewash at Trent Bridge yesterday.

It was New Zealand's fourth consecutive test loss, contrasting with Bracewell's Midas touch with the one-day side, who have won nine of their last 11 matches on the back of aggressive, attacking fielding.

With the addition of Hamish Marshall, Chris Harris and Ian Butler, the one-day unit now prepare for the tri-series starting against England in Manchester on Thursday next week.

But the wounds from the test series will take some time to heal, and the solutions aren't exactly leaping out.

"This will hurt for a while," a frustrated captain, Stephen Fleming, admitted as England's champagne fizzed about nearby.

"The times in the tests where we couldn't ram home the advantage . . . even looking back to the tests against South Africa and Pakistan we weren't able to do that.

"There are issues there, skill issues, which we've got time to address after the one-day series."

New Zealand have a soft series in Bangladesh as their next test assignment, in October, but a month later face Australia in two tests across the Tasman which will test Bracewell's ability to extract some mental improvement.

Here, New Zealand were outplayed by a man-for-man better test side, but punched above their weight.

They were always in touch, but lacked a knockout blow.

Injuries played a key part, with Chris Martin, Kyle Mills and Daniel Vettori's absence making yesterday's four-wicket loss excusable in the dead rubber.

The two major areas of concern were the middle-order batting, where the seasoned trio of Nathan Astle, Scott Styris and Craig McMillan all had series to forget, and the pace bowling.

New Zealand's third innings efforts were all below what they needed as they failed to set a target of 300-plus in all three matches, despite being in a strong position.

Bowling-wise, Fleming felt helpless as Daryl Tuffey and Martin couldn't reproduce their New Zealand wicket-taking form, and it was left to Chris Cairns at barely 125km/h to produce a lion-hearted nine for 187 in his emotional farewell test.

"We were so close, that's what's so disappointing. It was a series where we played some pretty good cricket at times but still lost 3-0," said Fleming, whose only other 3-0 loss as captain was to the mighty Australia in 2000.

"We're nowhere near that bad and England will be the first to concede that.

"Going into each day four we were in with a sniff, sometimes well ahead, and they fought back pretty well with some class players.

"They had players such as [pacemen] Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff who came at us hard when the chips were down and did the business.

"We were up to 10mph slower on wickets that were up and down, and that can make a difference."

New Zealand's star of the series was opener Mark Richardson, who scored 369 runs at 61.5 in nearly 22 hours, falling just twice to the lethal Harmison, who took 21 wickets at 22.09. Fleming averaged 51.33 and was the only other New Zealand batsman to top 45, whereas England had six batsmen averaging 45-plus.

Fleming also wants the injury toll seriously looked at, with Martin (hamstring) and Mills (side strain) both breaking down early in the test, with Mills' ending his tour.

James Franklin will replace Mills for the one-dayers after a sound test comeback. Vettori's hamstring and Michael Papps' broken finger are both on the mend.

"They're pretty frustrated as to why injuries have hounded us once again.

"We all want answers, especially me, as to why we get so many injuries and go down like this."

New Zealand play three warmup one-day matches this week.

- NZPA