KEY POINTS:
In a few years from now, some small child will be leafing through his cricket almanac and ask: "Why didn't Chris Martin play more one-day internationals?"
Pity the poor father who will umm, ahh, then concede he doesn't know the answer to that, wishing his son had asked him something less challenging, like: "How are babies made?"
Okay, so he wouldn't be able to stake a claim as a specialist batsman in the Ratapiko thirds, and his fielding will never be compared favourably to Jonty Rhodes, or possibly even Wilfred Rhodes, but the boy can bowl.
Martin is 33 and yesterday was just his 16th ODI. Given New Zealand's lack of international class players that's a ridiculously low total.
He has impressed observers this year with a slightly more imposing frame and an extra few kilometres at the bowling crease. Yesterday he didn't need to be quick - the pitch did enough of the legwork for him - but it was still a penetrative spell.
His statistics in this form of the game are not startling but then he has never been given an extended run in the team.
Yesterday, for the first time since the first few overs of Tuesday's Twenty20 at Eden Park, Martin offered New Zealanders some hope that this wouldn't be a one-sided exercise in futility.
On a pitch that was slow and offered Roland Garros-type bounce, Martin gave the confident English nothing to hit. Front-foot stroke play was difficult so he kept it up, giving Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram and Scott Styris the perfect blueprint.
Throw in the fact that he breached both Alastair Cook and Ian Bell's defences, bowled eight overs straight for just 22 runs and you had a potentially match-winning performance.
Styris, who replaced Martin at the northern end, bowled his 10 straight. His accuracy, coupled with the erratic bounce, made him close to impossible to get away. He picked up Phil "Colonel" Mustard with an offspinner and enticed Ravi Bopara to spoon a longhop to deep square.
Meanwhile, England were compounding matters with their running. Three times they fell agonisingly short of their ground as New Zealand grew in confidence.
England, however, had a ready-made excuse for some rustiness. Their flight from Christchurch was delayed several hours on Friday after the hijack drama on a plane bound between Blenheim and Canterbury.
The incident caused a major backlog of flights, and England's departure was delayed for two-and-a-half hours. Their scheduled training session at Wellington had to be abandoned and instead they held a team meeting at their hotel.
