After England drew level at Auckland, Stephen Fleming said that his side were at their best when they were desperate. The assembled media smiled politely. Tonight Fleming's piece of kidology looked more like a prophecy. In one of the coldest cities in the country, New Zealand kept their cool superbly. They bowled an unerring line on a flat wicket, fielded with the verve that had been missing in the previous two games, and overcame two brief wobbles with the bat. If they were desperate, it didn't show. England were flat, which at least maintained one of the more bizarre themes of this series: at no stage have both sides fizzed in the same game. Maybe England had spent their emotional energy winning at Napier and Auckland. Or maybe they were just outplayed. Only three batsmen - Nick Knight, Nasser Hussain and Owais Shah - got in, and duly got themselves out. Only one and a half bowlers - Craig White and, for a while, Paul Collingwood - worked out that you can't give Nathan Astle any width at all. And with the ground-fielding back to its scrappy old self, the half-chances were invariably dropped. After New Zealand's near-faultless display in the field, White dived over Chris Nevin's dab to third man off the first ball of their reply. Nothing summed up the difference between the sides as cruelly as that.

England's score of 218 for 8 was about 35 short of par on a ground where New Zealand chased 286 to beat Pakistan a year ago. Marcus Trescothick failed to reach double figures for the fourth time in the series, Graham Thorpe fell victim to the law of averages and played round a straight one, and two men couldn't even turn fifties into sixties. And England again failed to make the most of the last ten overs. At Napier they converted a 40-over score of 181 for 2 into an end-of-innings 244 for 5; here it was 170 for 4 in the 39th, followed by 218 for 8. The platforms are being built, and then pulled away from under England's feet. They really are paying for their lack of lower-order hitters.

The bowlers were blown off course by an Astle whirlwind. It was his 12th one-day century - twice as many as the entire England squad put together - and after he had battered his first fifty in 42 balls, New Zealand could afford to push the ones and twos. He started the series creaking with rust, but has since played two spanking matchwinning innings. He even showed consideration for the statisticians: the leg-side heave for his fifth six that finished the game took him past 5000 one-day runs and his previous best of 120.

Australia lost three of their four games against New Zealand in the VB Series, and that was at home. So for England to lose 3-2 to them away is no disgrace. And ten one-day wins out of 16 this winter is manna from heaven for a side that had lost its previous 11. But the countdown to the World Cup starts now, and England are not quite ready for takeoff.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd