Adam Parore: Defeat in opening ODI proved critical to series

A 5-0 beating sounds bad in anyone's language but when you're playing a team as good as these Australians you have to qualify it.

They are an outstanding, ruthless team who have cleaned out everyone else. It's not as though New Zealand are alone in having been trampled on by these blokes, so I would not read too much into the final scoreline.

There was an inevitability about Saturday's heavy loss in Napier, coming as it did after three crushing defeats.

What happened in the one-day series was a team at the top of their game came up against another beset by injury problems, forced to pick players not up to the job and whose morale took a hammering as the series progressed.

I'm as convinced now as I was at the time that the critical day was the opening ODI in Wellington. New Zealand lost by 10 runs and should have won it with an over to spare. If they had won, it's conceivable the series could have ended 3-2. In a sense, that was the deciding of the series right there and then.

What the selectors have learnt is that they know who the best 12 one-day players are. This series has provided evidence that they can point to when calls are coming to bring in new faces. There is daylight between the top group of players and the next best.

It sounds tough, but they now know Tama Canning and Lance Hamilton aren't good or quick enough. You have players who are good first-class performers struggling to make the big step up.

However, James Marshall showed enough to me to suggest he has something to offer.

I'd discount Craig Cumming's performances because I'm certain he was picked essentially to get a look at the Australian bowlers before the first test this week.

Jeff Wilson was slightly disappointing. I'm certain he's disappointed with himself. But I would not discard him now. I can see him doing a job against the Sri Lankans, West Indies and Pakistanis. He produced some hostile bursts with the ball, doesn't let you down in the field and we know he can be handy with the bat lower down.

The three big positives out of the series were Craig McMillan, Hamish Marshall and Dan Vettori.

McMillan has had his share of critics but he was given a chance and averaged 34, scoring at a good clip.

We have known Marshall has special qualities. He got a couple of half centuries, averaged almost 40 and enhanced his reputation as one of our best batsmen. His task now is to start scoring hundreds.

As for Vettori, he reinforced that he's our one world class bowler. And if his body doesn't hold together during the test series, there's a good chance our bowling stocks, which are already stretched near breaking point, will completely fall apart.

How would we be going if we were playing any other test nation? I suspect we would be in reasonable shape, providing we had our best players fit and available.

And that just shows the calibre of team we've been up against. The tests are coming, a whole new ball game, different dynamics, fresh faces but the challenge won't get any easier for New Zealand.

* Adam Parore is a former New Zealand wicketkeeper.