David Leggat: Kiwis really lost the plot in T20 horror story

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There's a temptation to dismiss New Zealand's horror show in Christchurch this week as "only T20".

After all, the three-game series against Pakistan had already been won, it's the festive season, jolly ho-ho-ho and all that, and it wasn't a test match.

All of that is undeniably true. The "only" mob think it doesn't matter because when you start breaking out in a sweat over the teenage offspring of the 50-over format you've got a problem.

And like teenagers, this game can be daft at times.

Opinions on the worth of T20 range from not much, through to it being the best thing to happen to the game for 30 years, since a big Australian TV bloke decided players would look better in coloured clobber and mate, paint the ball white while you're at it.

Whatever your view, T20 is here for a time to come. How long is another story, but it is all around us. Therefore it matters, at least to a point.

So when spectators are heading for the exits several overs before the end of a game designed to last no more than three hours, something's gone badly wrong.

There's no point banging on about events at AMI Stadium on Thursday night.

Rather like dropping a carton of milk, you wipe it up and move on.

Teams have been walloped before in this form and it'll happen again, if hopefully not to New Zealand on this scale.

Losing their first four wickets for ducks was freakish but from that point New Zealand were dead men walking.

A T20 game can go badly wrong very smartly, as Thursday demonstrated.

Pakistan turned up to play, batted with gusto, climbed into a rag-tag pile of bowling, then bowled cleverly themselves.

Was New Zealand's guard down, having won the series? Were they not switched on? If that's the case, after the last few months' limited-overs work, then there is an issue. They're hardly in a position to start getting cosy.

Acting captain Ross Taylor eventually emerged from a post-game team meeting looking and sounding rather dazed.

"Disappointed" was his key word. He could say that again. And he did, several times.

Only Kenya and Zimbabwe have scored more ducks in a T20 innings than New Zealand's five, a mark they share with Scotland.

Five times 10 batsmen in a T20 innings have failed to make double figures. This was one of them.

Scott Styris hit 45 of New Zealand's 80. The only comparable example of one New Zealand batsman dominating the scoring in a completed innings came in an ODI against Pakistan in Sharjah in 1990.

Andrew Jones made 47 out of 74 that day, a skyscraper among the rubble. No one else reached 10.

It was the first time New Zealand had encountered an 18-year-old blessed with electric pace. Waqar Younis announced himself with five for 20 that day.

He is the link between the two occasions, now as Pakistan coach.

Taylor knew his team had let the cricket public down.

"A lot of people paid a lot of money to come and watch. It was a soft performance ... you don't mind losing if you give 100 per cent and play well but when you put in a performance like that it's tough to swallow ..." and so on.

Unfortunately human nature is such that the good work of the previous two wins won't be remembered as long as the quacking of New Zealand's top order.

The test series starts in Hamilton next Friday. Different form of cricket, several different players. Parking the events of Thursday night in a dark corner should be the top priority.