This was one of England's worst performances under Duncan Fletcher and revived memories of last summer's debacle in the NatWest Series. The low point in that competition came at Old Trafford, where England were bowled out for 86 on a seamers' paradise by two heavenly fast bowlers, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie. Today they were undone by Andre Adams, an honest seamer with eight one-day wickets to his name at the start of the match, and the very unscary Nathan Astle - and on a wicket that was sluggish but not spiteful. It's fair to say the low point just got lower. The World Cup is just 12 months away, but England's preparations are light years behind schedule. For a start they must learn to be up for every game. It sounds basic, but today they still seemed to be ruing those missed chances in Christchurch. The catching yet again was butter-fingered - when Nick Knight drops two chances, you know things are bad - and the body language was all double Dutch. The selectors are even less fluent, because England currently have no idea what their best team is. Matthew Hoggard or Andy Caddick? Owais Shah or Michael Vaughan? Marcus Trescothick or James Foster? It really is a case of back to the drawing-board (although on current form the drawing-board is probably sitting unclaimed in an airport somewhere on the South Island).

New Zealand were in a different league and two moments summed up exactly why. When Nasser Hussain came into bat, Stephen Fleming deliberately left wide open spaces in the leg-side field and instructed Daryl Tuffey to stick religiously to an outside-off-stump line. Fleming knows that Nasser likes to go for his shots early these days, and when Tuffey dropped fractionally short, Hussain couldn't resist the temptation of the empty midwicket region. But the attempted flick shot simply skewed to backward point instead: Fleming 1, Hussain 0.

Paul Collingwood was out-thought too. When he arrived at the crease, Fleming immediately greeted him with two short extra-covers. Collingwood isn't a big off-side player anyway, but this encouraged him to play across the line even more than he usually does. Shortly after, an attempted work to leg took the leading edge and Collingwood was on his way: 2-0. Where England were bereft of ideas, Fleming was the man with several plans. He even had the confidence to withdraw Nathan Astle from the attack after a spell of 1-0-1-1.

Today was more than a bad day at the office for England: the office has blown up altogether. "Are you Bangladesh in disguise?" asked one banner. This was harsh ... on Bangladesh.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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