KEY POINTS:
It was a fabulous cricket contest in Hamilton and a brilliant result for New Zealand. A bloody Sunday for English cricket will long be celebrated in this part of the world.
Those on the English side may suspect that such over-enthusiasm for the match is linked to the outcome, but I will plead here that we have been starved of decent test match action in this country and absence has definitely made the heart grow fonder. Furthermore, a well-rated English side has been humbled and they didn't even have to face Shane Bond's thunderbolts.
The English critics will be even less amused because this savage loss came against a New Zealand side minus any true world-class greats of the Richard Hadlee or Martin Crowe ilk.
What was supposed to be a very good English team with Ashes-winning strains have been embarrassed by a melting pot of promise stirred by a couple of clever veterans in Daniel Vettori and Stephen Fleming.
England were crushed in superlative fashion, and cricket suddenly has new heroes. It's difficult to recall a New Zealand team, especially of this order, dishing out a test match hammering such as this.
Vettori's side have done very well this summer, but the first test victory in Hamilton is the highlight.
They were expected to win the one-day contest, but England were definitely rated the stronger test side. A rebuilt New Zealand team has put England to the sword with their leader very much at the helm. Vettori is fast becoming a New Zealand sporting legend and most importantly, his captaincy is now firmly underway.
The real triumph of this summer, especially if the Black Caps can go on with the job, is that Vettori's leadership is beginning to draw the best out of players such as Jamie How, Ross Taylor and Kyle Mills - and even Jesse Ryder.
Those - especially Adam Parore in these pages - who have argued that Fleming's captaincy had become too remote for a new generation may have had a valid point. Thankfully and vitally, Vettori's own game remains unaffected.
I won't encourage any clamour to criticise England's slow batting though. They are down on confidence and simply did what they believed they had to do to claw their way into the game on a slowish pitch.
Chief critic Fleming, who might have attained a better test average than 40 had he found a similar pig-headedness, may have been trying to tempt England into trouble. Otherwise, he was far too quick to put the boot in after the first innings of a new series.
The tourists' determination to boycott the modern trends by producing a bit of Geoffrey Boycott was wonderfully dogged stuff and the lust for continual fast scoring in test matches is over the top anyway. Test matches enthral because of their many facets, and this test easily held the attention.
England's first-innings intransigence put meaning into the test, and helped blow all those one-day and Twenty20 cobwebs out of the system. New Zealand have won brilliantly in the face of a determined if ultimately misguided opponent.
A major downside of England's overly-cautious batting however, and a significant one it has to be conceded, is that New Zealand is hardly a nation of test-match devotees and erecting what turned out to be flimsy barricades at a rate of two runs an over won't have fans flocking to the contest.
It's not England's job to throw their bat at the ball in the name of New Zealand cricket, but their limited approach proved self-defeating.
England, led by Alastair Cook, caught brilliantly but couldn't use this to infuse more quality and energy into the rest of their game.
It means the post-match analysis, and criticisms, will undoubtedly centre on England's stonewalling tactics. How times have changed.
New Zealand's first win over England 30 years ago came in a match that was played almost entirely at this sort of pace, or lack of.
Trench warfare batting is definitely not something you want to see all the time, and yet it has its place in the test smorgasbord. Not that the promoters will agree.
While the rest of the sporting world seeks out bigger and better stadiums, New Zealand cricket has to scour about for smaller patches of land. If you happen to find a bloke putting a level on your back lawn or measuring up the garage it could be someone eyeing up your place as a test venue.
This series deserves a big audience though. It is beautifully set up, with the more fancied team now forced to dig itself out of a hole.
Michael Vaughan will know that his batters must find a few more shots to challenge a buoyant New Zealand.
