A Messy Disintegration

0-2 to England. What a freaking miserable Test series by New Zealand. Although the close first test was a brilliant study in the refined tedium of Test Cricket, with extended innings of unrelentingly stunning boredom by batsmen Mark Richardson, Andy Strauss and the retiring Nassar Hussain, the problem was that the last two names belonged to England.
The second Test was catastropic however. Even though a day was lost to the rain gods, the Poms were able to wrap up the Kiwi's in less than four days. What was worse was the implosion of the New Zealand players themselves. And this after the hype of the first fully fit New Zealand team to tour Britain since the mighty Hadlee bestrode the earth. Secret weapon strike bowler Bond's spine failed to show up at Heathrow; batsmen Papps and McMillian have smashed pinkys; the Venerable Astle is having mysterious bouts of illness and the new big man Oram sides have given out. The captain has groin strain, and now Vettori's leg has apparently fallen off, robbing New Zealand of its only available spin-bowler.
The irony is that New Zealand's traditional human wreck, the old big man Chris Cairns, appears to perfectly fine for his last Test.