Mark Richardson: Opportunity knocks but New Zealand don't answer

New Zealand missed a real opportunity in this match through poor technique and panic which spread through the ranks like a virus.

The match might not have looked like an opportunity to many people but Glenn McGrath wasn't there - and that was the opportunity to which I am referring. When the best quick bowler of his generation isn't playing, I'm sorry, that's an opportunity.

But the Black Caps just did not look like they had prepared to take advantage of it.

I must admit, however, that Brett Lee really stood up and took responsibility. We just seemed to be caught on the hop. We looked under-prepared and, sorry to say, like possums in the headlights.

We were shell-shocked. Lee bowled quickly and aggressively and I'd have to say he is a better one-day bowler than a test bowler although he is rapidly improving in that area, too. But while it was a fine performance by Lee, what happened to the Black Caps?

We just didn't seem to be prepared and our technique and the basics just went out the window. I guess it doesn't help when a bowler like Shane Bond is sidelined and maybe the practice sessions lacked a bit of match-like intensity as a result. Bond bowling at them obviously gives the batsmen a taste of what Lee will be like.

But, whatever the reason, the effects were plain to see. As well as Lee bowled, nobody should get through five overs at this level for so few runs.

The Black Caps just never recovered. Instead of employing the basics and knuckling down and using solid footwork and offering the full face of the bat in the early overs, they tried to smash it.

You are not, unless you are very lucky or highly talented, going to smash a quickie who is bowling on line at 155km/h plus.

That's where the panic set in. Instead of seeing Lee off and picking up the ones and twos, New Zealand then let the virus affect them to the extent that they let the other Australian bowlers feed off Lee and dominate the batsmen.

When you need five runs an over, you have to accept - especially with a bowler like Lee - that you are going to get some good bowling. You need some small flow of runs and you need to preserve wickets to force the pace later, if you have to. But you don't go trying to force it straight away.

This result will make it hard - but not impossible - for this team to come back for the rest of this series. At least now they've had a taste of what to expect.

Now they need to tune their heads, fine-tune their technique, get their game faces on and show more fight than this. Such turnarounds are not impossible - New Zealand has done it before - but they will need to embrace the basics again.