KEY POINTS:
There is trouble at the top in New Zealand cricket, and always has been.
The Black Caps are mowing down Bangladesh but it only looks mildly impressive until you realise there aren't any dangers. Then you analyse the performance, and start wondering how it would hold up in the real world.
New Zealand's perpetual problem is its opening partnership. Remarkably, the reality is worse than its shoddy image.
The old saying that you are only as strong as your weakest link may be fully exposed by the English test squad in March. The injured Andrew Flintoff will be missing but if Steve Harmison finds his rhythm, which is never a gimme, and Matthew Hoggard finds our conditions to his liking, as he should, then watch out.
The consistent thing about New Zealand's opening partnerships is that they are willing to fail against anybody. They are neither snobbish nor fawning in this.
The domino effect on New Zealand cricket is monumental. Good middle-order batsmen have been pressed into opening and paid the price.
Others have been exposed far too often to the new ball. Bowlers have had meagre tallies to protect. Potentially good teams have gone bad, and crowds have simply gone. If only Glenn Turner and Mark Richardson had turned up at the same time.
The brilliant Australian partnership of Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer averaged a touch over 50 and they scored heavily individually.
With the West Indian icons, the savage Gordon Greenidge and more traditional Desmond Haynes, Hayden and Langer are the peaks to aim for. We will never climb that high, but it is time to leave a shambolic base camp.
The last few seasons have been ones of utter disaster for our openers, and this continued against awful Bangladesh where the Craig Cumming/Matthew Bell combo is nought for three after their failure at the Basin Reserve; although, to be fair, Bell was unlucky.
This series was ripe for the openers to find and give confidence but they've bombed again.
This mirrors a previous lost watershed opportunity against lowly Zimbabwe in late 2005, where James Marshall and Lou Vincent contributed partnerships of 21 and 34 in totals of 452 and 484.
Since then, 21 opening stands have yielded a meagre 400-odd runs. In that time only one opener has passed 50 against Sri Lanka, the West Indies, South Africa and Bangladesh. Worse still, these partnerships have lasted, on average, just six overs.
Going back to that 2005 Zimbabwe series, there have been nine different combinations involving Cumming, Bell, Michael Papps, Vincent, Stephen Fleming, Hamish and James Marshall, Jamie How, and Peter Fulton. What an un-merry-go-round.
New Zealand cricket needs a wholehearted, obsessive, dedicated, sweeping campaign and strategy to sort this out. If solved, it might sort a lot of other matters out.
Maybe the last decent - by our standards - opening partnership involved John Wright and Trevor Franklin, who retired in 1991. Wright, who limited his strokemaking for the cause, finished with a reasonable test average, Franklin a poor one.
But Franklin was a stonewaller who in the absence of providing meaningful runs of his own, attempted to help others provide them later.
We are not going to produce our own crop of Haydens and Greenidges capable of staying and flaying. Turner was as close as it may ever come in this regard.
New Zealand produces so few great strokemakers that it would be foolish to deliberately send them out on fresh mornings against the hard ball, even though this is what invariably happens one way or another.
At least we should be able to produce a Franklin type, or maybe another Wright, who lived by where his off-stump was and forced the bowlers to provide what he needed for a long and stout-hearted test career.
The effect of this malaise is a middle order where talent never quite fulfils potential and a late order forever pressured into rearguard actions.
It is a stupid way to play test cricket, and the odds are that big Harmison and the Yorkshire swing of Hoggard and Ryan Sidebottom will make the Black Caps pay for this again.
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Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful's first innings dismissal, caught behind, was another tick for the introduction of television technology to assist umpires.
Presuming that the video and snicko were in perfect sync, television clearly showed that the ball flicked Ashraful's pad and not his bat.
It was a difficult decision for the umpire, but one which could have been made very easy.
Ashraful, Bangladesh and cricket deserved better.
Cricket needs to bring the replay into play along with clear and well considered rules to govern it.
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What an absolute feast from Old Trafford. Manchester United were simply magnificent against shambolic Newcastle, winning the English football premiership clash 6-0 after a scoreless first half. It could have been 12-0. What forward capabilities they have, Tevez, Giggs, Rooney and the best of them all Ronaldo.
If you didn't see the game, try to find the replay. One of Ronaldo's goals was sublime, as was the combination between Rooney and Ferdinand for another.
This was a day to celebrate the exhilarating qualities of sport and the great United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. He is a genius, for what he has achieved and his ability to sustain success.
The game had to rise above poor refereeing decisions though. Manchester United were denied two clear penalties while one goal was dubious. A wrong offside call denied hopeless Newcastle.
