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New Zealand teams have faced stiffer challenges than the one facing them today - but not many.
They start the final day at 222 for five, 331 runs short of the huge target England set yesterday. Forget victory; safety is still six hours away.
On a day when Stephen Fleming's final test innings dominated the stage, New Zealand will regret dropping four wickets in a poor final session just as there was a hint that a brave piece of resistance was brewing.
For a time, with the pitch still playing well, there was a faint glimmer of hope New Zealand might survive to finish one-all in the three-test rubber.
Matthew Bell and Fleming provided it with their second-wicket stand of 99 before departing in the space of 13 Monty Panesar deliveries shortly after tea.
The slide set in from there and between them, Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum - who had added 50 for the sixth wicket at stumps - with Daniel Vettori and the tail have their work cut out for them today.
Bell started New Zealand's second innings with a dark cloud over his England tour prospects. Early on, he looked like a man batting in a telephone box, his feet going nowhere, but Bell is a fighter.
He got better as he went along, vigorous cuts and drives interspersed with flicks through square leg getting him to his third test 50.
But third ball after tea he played a horrendous pull at Panesar to be caught at deep backward square leg.
Then Fleming, having got to 66 - securing his average at 40.06 - touched a catch to keeper Tim Ambrose off Panesar and left to a standing ovation.
Mathew Sinclair and Grant Elliott were unable to control sharp, lifting deliveries from the spirited and highly impressive Stuart Broad. They are unlikely to be packing their bags for England.
Panesar was tight and got some turn, sharing the wickets with Broad, who was the pick of the attack with a fine display.
But it was Fleming's day and he supplied an innings that was a snapshot of his career. He struck the ball fluently, effortlessly at times, a cut above anything else New Zealand can offer, before getting out when least expected.
He reflected last night on a career in which he knows he under-achieved. He converted 16 per cent of his test 50s into centuries, a statistic that hurts.
"I'll always rue that fact," he said. "I don't know why I couldn't convert. Sometimes I was a master of my own failings, other times it was not meant to be."
He walked off yesterday frustrated - "which has happened 50 or 60 times in my career, so it was probably a fitting way to go. I don't seem to be making too many mistakes [but] I'm paying the price."
Fleming, who was quietly chuffed to achieve the 40 benchmark - "it just sets you apart among New Zealand batsmen" - wished he was still there this morning, perhaps with his 10th test century on the board, "having a crack at saving the game".
But those final two hours mortally wounded New Zealand's ambitions. Still Fleming was talking, probably more in hope than expectation, about saving the test today.
And he had time for a final dig at the selectors who, by removing the cherished test captaincy from him last year, also took away much of his personal desire to carry on.
Who should take over at No 3 from him? "My ideas are a lot different to the selectors. They seem to have their ideas what they want. They can work that one out."
