England wary of falling to New Zealand guile

“It’s a balance between both. We have to develop teams in the long term but also got to win in the short term.”

Four years ago, England beat New Zealand 3-0 and West Indies 4-0 to set themselves up for the Ashes triumph over the Australians in the following year. This year they are clearly superior on paper to a New Zealand side who have lost their entire top order batting in the intervening years.

But they are also uncomfortably aware that they were comprehensively outplayed by the Kiwis in the first Test in Hamilton this year before the visitors rallied to take the series 2-1.

New Zealand are led by the canny Daniel Vettori, the best orthodox spinner in the world and a remarkably effective batsman at number eight. They also possess a sensational one-day batsman in wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum and a fine all-rounder in Jacob Oram plus a disciplined pace attack.

“They are under-rated, they’ve got real quality bowlers, real quality batters, they play as a unit and their fielding is electric,” England’s leading batsman Kevin Pietersen said this week.

Chris Martin, New Zealand’s leading leading strike bowler, said on Tuesday that the pressure was on the home side.

“Maybe they do read the papers a bit more than they should. I know there is a lot of media hype to bring the English team up, that they should really stamp on us and destroy us,” he said.