England black out in game of Russian Roulette

A week may be the arbitary unit of time used to illustrate the fluid nature of circumstance and perception, but a mere two days of cricket, and short ones at that, have been all that was needed to effect volte-face on multiple fronts and leave England with cheeks reddened by the embarassment of two defeats crushingly ignominious even by the recent dismal standards of their one-day team. Words like dismal, detroe and rabble had begun to fade from the English supporter's vocabulary in regard to the one-day team, but two consecutive nostalgia nightmares have refreshed the memory with a venegance. And their opposition? Not all-conquering Australia, patrician India or swashbuckling Sri Lanka; all teams England have taken series off over the last year. Instead a team shorn of the flower of its talent; derided by its own press and public prior to the series; and crushed by England in the 20 over games. Little New Zealand, all tubby batsmen and dobbing trundlers; they have been far too good.

Perhaps the first defeat was explainable. Unable to roar from the blocks on a lightning-fast pitch and detach the English head from body by force, New Zealand took the achievable alternative: asphyxiation on a dead track, Styris and Oram constrictors in chief. 130 a total no more defendable than England's palpable failure to adapt to conditions they had failed to divine. But on no grounds can their performance at Hamilton be defended, explained or countenanced. Pietersen and Cook were laying a decent foundation at 90-2; then England were in freefall, the last 8 wickets falling for 68. To say it all went up in a puff of smoke would be to imply a sense of spectacle wholly inappropriate.

Assumptions and pre-allocated views have had to be hastily re-examined. Consider the contrasting fortunes of Ravi Bopara and Jesse Ryder. The former, despite a chastening induction to the Test arena, was still England one-day golden boy; Ryder, before he had raised a bat in anger for his country, was labelled a lardarse too fat to be playing international sport. Now, in just one innings, Ryder is said to embody the spirit of Colin Milburn; after two fraught, high body-count innings, Bopara awaits his first taste of the scrap heap. Perception has and always will be fickle when it comes to sport, but such paradigm shifts are faintly incredible, which illustrates the extraoridnary nature of the results. And therein, possibly, lies England's salvation. Their demise in both games has been so swift that there has been precious little chance to make a judged retreat to safer ground, a manouevre England have proved themselves neither good enough nor experienced enough to effect. And by fouling up on each occasion with the bat, they have given their bowlers, architects of many recent victories, no chance to make an impression on the course of either game. Possibly it is vain hope that England will deign to showcase the talent they have previosly displayed, which should make them New Zealand's betters. For New Zealand will continue to be good; the question is, will England continue to make them look worldbeaters?

I hear the vitriol already. English arrogance! What credit to New Zealand? Plenty, in fact. They have not only outdone England by several elongated heads in every facet of the game, but have effected a comeback only the most blinkered Kiwi tub-thumper would have forecasted after they submitted to double defeat in the Twenty20 series and England looked rampant. The bowling has been incisive, tight and to plan; twice they have given England masterclasses on batting according to conditions. More than anything, their fielding has sparkled; England have been getting precious little themselves with the bat, but that next to nothing has been given away just augments the torture. Compare with England, a tawdry mess of run-outs and dropped catches.

Repeated humiliation for England has opened up debate over issues which looked case-closed when they overcame India at the tail-end of last summer. Ian Bell, batting star of that series for the home team, no longer looks secure at first drop, having followed an anonymous series in Sri Lanka with two no-shows here. Kevin Pietersen, whom many would have occupy Bell's slot, looks in no state for the promotion and a shadow of his dominating best. The middle-order, once a lone bastion of reliablity, has been experimenting detrimentally with the binary system. A fairly inflexible 16-man squad means England are more-or-less stuck with what they've got, although Ravi Bopara seems sure to lose his place to Dimi Mascarenhas. There is equally little room for manouevre in the series, in that familiar position of two down with three to come. The management will be stressing the need for a performance in the forthcoming game; the rest are just screaming for a result. There is little left in the realm of possiblity with which England's one-day side can surprise us. Dating from twelve months ago, there have been victories against opposition as unlikely as Australia, India and Sri Lanka. Right now, they are supping from the well of despair visited in the period preceding those results and again at the World Cup. All told, a dizzying cocktail of brilliance and crapulence, and a sequence which they look unready to bring any sort of order to.