KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's cricket side arrived at Westpac Stadium under a couple of injury clouds but the gloom steadily lifted on several levels today as the Black Caps strode to a six-wicket win over England in the first of five one-day internationals.
The emphatic margin was the ideal antidote after New Zealand were comprehensively outplayed in two Twenty20 matches earlier in the week - and stalled the momentum of an England side hopeful of improving on their lowly status as the seventh-ranked ODI nation.
After limiting a pedestrian England to 130 before they were all out two balls before the scheduled close, New Zealand coasted to victory with a massive 120 balls up their sleeve and plenty of wickets in hand.
Ross Taylor was not out 24 and Peter Fulton (1) when New Zealand rounded off a successful exercise which started with the encouraging return from injury of Daniel Vettori and Jacob Oram.
England's batsmen managed just seven boundaries in the course of their innings, a statistic that aptly illustrated the gulf between the teams after Jesse Ryder and Brendon McCullum had matched that figure by the 12th over.
Ryder departed soon after for 31 off 49 balls, the ODI debutant offering another glimpse of his hitting power while McCullum constructed easily his best return against the tourists with 42 at a run-a-ball pace studded with five boundaries and a six.
The pair put on a confident 61 for the first wicket, and at light speed compared with the pace of England's entire innings.
After choosing to bat first after Paul Collingwood won the toss, England's batsmen, without exception, became bogged down on a typically slow drop-in pitch that offered the added impediment of uneven bounce.
It was evident from the outset the surface - and New Zealand's uniformly accurate bowling attack - would not allow England's strokemakers the same latitude they enjoyed on Eden Park and AMI Stadium.
Six overs had elapsed before Phil Mustard stroked the first English boundary and fours remained at a premium as England's crawl was compounded by a regular loss of wickets.
Alastair Cook (11) was the first casualty in the 10th over when he was bowled by Chris Martin and, indicative of what was to follow, the opening stand of 34 was the most productive of the innings.
Ian Bell (5) and Kevin Pietersen, who made an uncharacteristically sluggish six off 20 balls, could at least curse their misfortune after both chopping on.
By the time Mustard, the top scorer with 31 off 60 balls, was bowled by Scott Styris in the 22nd over, England were unravelling at 67 for four and, unlike Christchurch on Thursday, Collingwood and Owais Shah could not provide any salvation.
The skipper was one of three run out victims as New Zealand's fielders exploited England's indecisiveness while Shah was also undone by a Jamie How throw to leave England to negotiate the traditional final 10 over flurry with only two wickets in hand.
Although the restoration of Vettori and Oram from ankle and hamstring problems respectively was an obvious boost for a side low on confidence, the Black Caps orchestrated an impressive collective performance with the ball.
Chris Martin set the tone with a probing opening spell before ending with two for 22 and Scott Styris each taking two for 22 off eight and 10 overs respectively, while Patel mopped up the tail with two for 14 off 6.4.
Oram, who gave his hamstring an early workout when handed the 12th over, took one for 20 off eight - the key wicket of Pietersen - while the wicketless Vettori and Kyle Mills still produced miserly spells.
England made two changes to the unit that won the Twenty20 matches so comfortably, bringing in specialist opener Cook for pinch hitter Luke Wright.
While Cook's return was forecast, the omission of hard hitting allrounder Dimitri Mascarenhas for Ravi Bopara appeared debatable, particularly after he laboured to three off 21 balls before slogging out in the deep.
The series continues at Hamilton's Seddon Park on Tuesday.
Vettori thought 230-240 runs would have been a good score so was pleasantly surprised by England's failure to threaten that target.
"The way we bowled and batted, I think it was one of the best performances we've put in for a while," he said.
Vettori added the side were still in a sound frame of mind despite losing both Twenty20 contests.
"We always hurt when we lose games but we knew we were a good one-day team and we just had to pick a few things up, pick up our performance and the team managed to do that.
"We just bowled really well.
"We summed up the wicket pretty early on. Chris (Martin) and Kyle (Mills) started well, we took wickets and most importantly they kept the runs down.
"When you do that good things tend to happen."
His counterpart Collingwood admitted his side were "never in the hunt" after posting 130.
"It was disappointing not to get a bigger total, we felt 210 was defendable but we never really got a partnership going.
"The New Zealanders bowled to their plans, they bowled straight and fielded exceptionally well."
He said the were caught out by the pitch conditions.
"You just have to look at the boundaries we got, there weren't many (seven) and most of them were edges. Everybody found it really difficult to get the ball away and even hit the gaps.
"Nothing really worked for us."
- NZPA
