David Leggat: Do our batsmen have the patience?

New Zealand have won just two of their past 20 tests. Photo / Getty Images

Searching the rubble of New Zealand's ignominious first test defeat, Pakistan's captain Misbah-ul-Haq offered a clue as to why the home team's batting might have failed so abjectly.

When Pakistan played a New Zealand XI in Whangarei before the test in Hamilton, Misbah scored an unbeaten 126 off essentially the test attack he would face a few days later.

Misbah spent an age over it, but gave himself the ideal leadup for the test.

In Hamilton, during his stand of 149 for the fifth wicket with little Asad Shafiq, Misbah was shut down for much of Saturday.

Runs slowed to a trickle, but still he persevered, not throwing his wicket away in the hunt for a quick-fix solution to being tied down, and in the end he was able to savour an unexpectedly crushing win.

He grafted 250 minutes over 62; Shafiq spent 236 minutes over 83.

Misbah was asked to assess the Seddon Park pitch on Sunday night.

"Run scoring was really difficult so you had to be a bit patient," he said.

"Batsmen get frustrated when they get stuck there facing a lot deliveries without scoring runs. That was the key - bowl in the right areas, keep the batsmen under pressure and they are going to make mistakes."

New Zealand's batsmen - rumbled for 110 in only 38.3 overs - didn't have time to get impatient in their second innings.

It happened on an unthreatening pitch, against a diligent, enthusiastic bowling attack. But patience, any form of stickability, was the most glaring quality missing from the New Zealand batting.

Call it doggedness, or resourcefulness, if you will. When the innings began sliding away, there was no one with the wherewithal to stop the rot.

In soccer terms, New Zealand needed a midfield organiser to put his foot on the ball, shift the momentum, change the flow of the game.

Whatever was said in the dressing room by way of a strategy as wickets began to fall was either not heeded or not understood. Neither possibility is particularly palatable.

Sometimes, John Wright gets a look on his face as he's watching events in the middle, almost as if trying to work out what's going on out there. It would have been a picture late on Sunday afternoon.

The new coach would surely have appreciated the work of Misbah and Shafiq.

"You've got to have that absolute desperation, particularly in five-day cricket, that you want to occupy the crease, and you've got to learn to sell your wicket very dearly," Wright said yesterday.

"It's going to take some time and we need to find batsmen that are prepared to be very patient and really want to stay at the crease."

Sunday's final session raised the thought that the problem is more mental than technical, with no one seemingly able to think through what needed to be done.

So what's going on in the batsmen's minds? And how much has the surge of T20 cricket hurt their attitude and diminished their desire for the longer game?

New Zealand have won just two of their past 20 tests: against Pakistan in Dunedin 13 months ago, and against Bangladesh in Hamilton last February.

Of the rest, 10 have been lost, eight drawn. So are New Zealand simply not much good at test cricket any more?

A couple of months ago they fought resiliently for two draws in India - no mean feat. That would suggest they are capable of solid five-day cricket.

Was Seddon Park just an aberration? The second test at the Basin Reserve on Saturday will give an idea about that.