KEY POINTS:
The bad old days returned with a vengeance to New Zealand cricket yesterday.
Fans might have been entitled to expect spectacular tumbles to be a thing of the past, but McLean Park was witness to one of the better ones in recent years as nine wickets fell for 65 runs in 26.2 overs.
A solid 103 for one had turned to mush, 168 all out, handing England an 85-run lead, and the upshot could be terminal to New Zealand's hopes of squaring, or even winning the three-test series against England.
At stumps, England were 91 for two, holding an overall lead of 176 with three days left.
If England go on to win the test, the reviews of the series will focus on two sessions when it all went pear-shaped for New Zealand - the last of day one in Wellington, when poor bowling let Tim Ambrose and Paul Collingwood share a match-deciding sixth-wicket stand, and yesterday between lunch and tea.
One of New Zealand cricket's traditions is the spectators' lunch break inspection of the pitch. What do they see in an oblong of brown earth?
Yesterday they would have seen nothing untoward, nothing to hint at exploding throat-threateners or ankle- biters, because there were none to find.
So how to explain a lame brain batting exhibition from New Zealand? A mix of fine left arm swing bowling from the durable Ryan Sidebottom combined with witless batting which varied from the careless to the timid to the daft.
At lunch, after Tim Southee and Chris Martin had whisked out the last three England wickets in 20 minutes, Jamie How and Stephen Fleming had positioned New Zealand ideally to build a match-winning lead.
Matthew Bell's ghastly run had continued, shouldering arms to Sidebottom's third ball to be lbw.
But How worked hard to get a foundation and got moving with a string of sure-footed shots. Fleming, in his final test, looked in exquisite touch. Twice he took three boundaries off James Anderson overs and cut him for six to point, as the Englishman, so impressive in the second test win in Wellington, returned to his ODI form and bowled like a drain.
Perhaps the message to the dressing room was that batting was a pretty straightforward business. And so it should have been.
But Fleming, on 59, wafted loosely at Sidebottom to be caught at second slip, and brains started to unravel in the New Zealand dressing room.
How was similarly sloppy outside his off stump, Ross Taylor got a good one from Stuart Broad before Mathew Sinclair and Brendon McCullum tossed their wickets away.
Sinclair needed runs both for the team and himself. His timing was awful. He tried to pull Sidebottom and toe-ended a catch to mid-on.
McCullum, whose mindset never wavers far from attack, tried to cut the left armer and the ball hit his off stump. Southee, who had done so well in taking five for 55 on debut, could be forgiven for wondering what he'd walked into as he strode out at 138 for seven.
It was a horror show but for all that, Sidebottom was a colossus for England. He bowled unchanged from the start of the second session until the New Zealand innings ended, during which his figures were 14.4-2-37-6.
His seven for 47 has been bettered only twice by an England bowler against New Zealand.
He will start New Zealand's second innings with 23 wickets, already the best series return for his country against New Zealand in a three-test series.
But amid the wreckage, Southee provided the highlight. Only two New Zealanders have produced better debut analyses and his ability to swing the ball will stand him in good stead when he heads to England next month.
