Mark Richardson: Poor technique is letting our top order down

Of our batsmen, only Ross Taylor and Daniel Vettori have reached anywhere near the amount of consistent performance required to say they have made the test grade.

The rest are obviously still at the first-class level or unable to make the shift from limited-overs play and, worst of all, continue to make the same technical and mental mistakes over and over again.

Tim MacIntosh, Martin Guptill, Daniel Flynn and Peter Fulton all have massive issues with their footwork - issues so large that if they aren't ironed out they will never make the grade.

MacIntosh needs to get lighter on his feet and use both of them. They are slow and static and he is relying on his hands too much. Sure, he can apply himself but he is offering the bowlers a target - his pads in front of the wicket.

Edges, lbws and bat-pads are all symptoms of a player who's planted at the wicket and prodding with his hands.

Guptill is too vulnerable early on. Yes, he has made the international grade in ODIs but though his freedom, timing and ball-striking gets him through, he cannot rely on it in tests.

To get through the early stages of a test match, you need to rely on foot movement and quality leaving. Getting on your tippy toes so you can throw your hands at the ball may work for Virender Sehwag in India but it won't for Guptill in New Zealand.

Flynn has gone backwards over the last year and whoever is responsible for that should be ashamed of themselves. Here is a young man with a great attitude and a ton of determination but a technique that is doomed to failure.

It's beyond me how he has been allowed to develop this over complicated method that results in no forward movement and lbw after lbw.

Fulton looks like a dead man walking at the crease right now and epitomises our woes. Here's a player brought back into the test arena on the back of great first-class form - and does not look any better than last time he was there.

There's a swag of these players littering our game right now. I'd suggest these players actually analyse how they are scoring their first-class runs; not how many they are scoring.

I have high hopes for Grant Elliott. He has a great attitude but must remember that, even though he gets much more time in test matches than he does through the middle and later stages of an ODI, it does not mean he stops playing. Take a leaf from Taylor's book. Modify your game, yes, but remain positive.

Brendon McCullum's dismissal was the one that annoyed me the most. Does he want to be a world-class batsman or not? You have to wonder.

If he does, then he needs to be more than the occasional sensational performer.

I don't care how aggressive and destructive he can be, I'd venture that even Sir Vivian Richards would leave a ball just full of a good length, just wide of off stump when it's his first ball.

The first innings at Dunedin suggested McCullum wants to play with more intelligence so let's hope his first innings dismissal in Wellington was just a temporary relapse.