Mark Richardson: Yes, they fell flat but I still have faith

Trent Boult needs to adapt to the difficult conditions. Photo / Photosport

Even Richie McCaw has an off day and Dan Carter often takes a few games to find his form, so I'm not going to crucify the Blacks Caps for the abysmal showing against Pakistan.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and show a little faith. That said, it was a dreadful performance and, coming off the back of the South African ODIs when they were outclassed, it wasn't the right time to put in a gutless display.

Pakistan are a test side on the rise but the way in which they were able to defeat our team without raising a sweat, which in the heat of the UAE is no mean feat, should be viewed as unacceptable.

Our team should struggle in such hot and flat conditions but they should still be hard to beat. Wins should be rare because the conditions in the UAE won't often suit the make-up of the average New Zealand cricketer but our boys should not be going belly-up from day one as they did last week.

It's not good enough for our fast-medium bowlers to just shrug their shoulders and say, 'it's flat'.

Trent Boult and Tim Southee are the undisputed strength of our team but if they want to be considered world-class, they need to be effective when there's little in it for them. They were tidy enough in unfriendly conditions but need to have a look at how Pakistan's opening bowler Rahat Ali went about his business and then have a look at themselves. Ali's first-innings figures of 22-4 from 17 overs would suggest he found something in the batsman-friendly conditions. Or did he simply find something within himself?

Perhaps a horses-for-courses approach is needed for the next test and one of Boult and Southee make way for Neil Wagner.

Wagner's aggression and reverse-swing might be more appropriate in the conditions than what our more classic opening partnership offers. It's a big call but aggression and risk-taking might be the only way to bowl Pakistan out in these conditions.

It would have been nice to see our spin bowlers enjoy more success but I thought they were OK. Mark Craig and Ish Sodhi are still inexperienced as test cricketers. I'll give them this one as another valuable learning experience but they had better be quick learners.

Undeniably, the lack of penetration by the bowlers was exposed by a lack of skill and backbone by the batsmen. Kane Williamson, Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor are proven test-match performers but, once again, their defence was found wanting against slow bowling.

This is not good enough because there was nothing untoward about the Pakistan bowlers, nothing freaky like a Murali, Mendis or Narine to catch you unaware. The Pakistan bowlers are orthodox, which makes these collapses hard to take.

But sometimes you just have an off day. I believe this team are better than what they showed over the past week, so they had better not leave me looking silly.