KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's latest defeat by England is one of our lowest points for many years.
With all due respects to the English, they are ranked eighth for a reason. That English side shouldn't win a game in this series, for heavens sake.
They've got players like Paul Nixon who is a good county professional and a nice bloke but he was an old man when I was playing. To have a guy playing his first ODI at the age of 36 speaks volumes about where England's ODI programme is at.
Watching that game on television I fancied my own chances of knocking up 20 or 30 - and I haven't played for four years. It was a dreadful performance by the Black Caps.
The New Zealand players are so far off the pace that they actually look like they are going backwards.
The Sri Lankan series were pretty appalling and now we are seeing that carried on in Australia.
There is disorganisation at a personal level, and just about all of them appear to be out of form.
The big issue is the top order batting and the problem goes back 12 or 18 months when the selectors decided to continue relying on Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming and Scott Styris, even though they have been unable to do the business at previous World Cups. They ignored Ross Taylor, Jamie How and Jesse Ryder, and now it is too late.
The bottom line is our batters aren't good enough and we will have to wait until after this World Cup and hope a new order comes through.
There's no point in replacing the failing old stars or John Bracewell at this stage. It is too close to the world tournament to change things although the long haul shows that Bracewell has yet to stack up as a coach. The numbers don't lie.
Most cricket sides in the world go through this sort of evolution. Star players hang on past their prime - they are hard to drop but aren't producing the goods and the team stagnates. Gradually they slip away and the new players come in, and then you hope to strike a fabulous new era.
Australia suffered a little as Steve Waugh's time came to an end, and there is some evidence that last year's Ashes loss was also due to the advancing age of their champion team - the fact that Damien Martin, Shane Warne, Justin Langer and Glenn McGrath have now called it a day lends further evidence to the suspicion that these guys might have hung on just a little too long.
Fleming has struggled for runs and appears hamstrung by his inability to lead by example. Gone are the innovations that made him such a terrific leader in the past. It's all a bit too patterned and uninspiring and it just doesn't look like our players are having much fun. There is nothing special about anything we do.
Ricky Ponting leads Australia by example yet he is not half the tactician that Fleming is.
The problem with an ageing top order who fail to put the runs on the board is that we are always battling to get back into the game and depend on taking wickets at critical times, where Australia show the way by being frontrunners who take the game away from other sides.
Compare our top order with Australia's, and you just know that we're never going to beat them at present.
There isn't much we can do to turn it around, although Brendon McCullum must be left at the top of the order for the long term good.
He isn't the problem right now. It's the older fading stars who are letting the side down. McCullum can be a superstar of Adam Gilchrist proportions and do major damage at the top of the innings. If he was vulnerable in the early overs, it would be a different matter. But he's not, and still looks likely to score.
Scott Styris can make a difference when he returns. But those relying on Jacob Oram may be disappointed. He has plenty of talent and has fired in the past but that's not enough - he averages about 18 and you don't win World Cups with those numbers.
So, on with this series.
Ponting is having a rest. But Australia are so far ahead, it won't make any difference.
