New Zealand's bowlers failed to take advantage of extremely good bowling conditions at Wellington on a day when England's left-handers, Marcus Trescothick and Mark Butcher, faced almost 70% of the strike. Presented with the sort of pitch on which Glenn McGrath would wreak havoc - in similar circumstances at Lord's in 1997 he took 8 for 38 to skittle England for 77 - New Zealand's errant line and length allowed England off the hook. Our graph shows the line the New Zealand bowlers bowled to England's left-handers, with 56% of the deliveries pitching outside off stump (71 of 128). This would be acceptable to a right-hander, but the natural angle of a right-arm seamer to a left-hand batsman is such that the optimum line is around middle and off. Pitching outside off from over the wicket meant that the batsmen did not have to play at every ball while the pitch is at its most perilous.

New Zealand's length wasn't spot-on either, with 43 out of 128 deliveries (34%) to the left-handers pitching short. On such a juicy, sweaty wicket, a bowler should aim to pitch it up and invite the batsman to drive, thus maximising the movement in the wicket available. The worst offender here was Chris Martin, exactly half of whose balls (18 out of 36) to the left-handers were short.

If Martin and Ian Butler are the tearaways, then Chris Drum is the line-and-length merchant, who New Zealand would have expected to deliver on this surface. His figures - 9-3-24-1 - made him the pick of the seamers on paper, but this was Alan Mullally territory. Drum did not make the England batsmen play enough, especially the left-handers. Trescothick and Butcher were able to leave 13 of the 35 deliveries they received from Drum - that's a negligent 35%. Against the rest of the bowlers, the figure was only 20% (18 out of 91).

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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