On a slow, low pitch at Wellington, New Zealand posted an above-average total thanks their greater sense of adventure. Playing back is a recipe for the disaster on a wicket such as this, and whereas England's batsmen scored 48% of their runs off the back foot (39 out of 78), the figure for New Zealand was only 28% (66 out of 232). As New Zealand showed, getting forward was the way forward: Craig McMillan, who made the only fifty of the match, scored 80% of his runs (55 out of 69) off the front foot. And whereas all of the New Zealand batsmen stepped out of the crease or away to the onside at some point - and garnered 22 runs off 16 balls in the process - only Nick Knight, Nasser Hussain and Andrew Flintoff got their toes twinkling for England.

The ability to improvise in one-day cricket is crucial at the best of times, even more so when the ball is not coming onto the bat. England played it straight - in terms of their approach - but textbook stuff is for whites, not pyjamas. Having said that, no approach in the world could have saved England from 40 for 6.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd