"Surprisingly there are many encouraging aspects to emerge from the debris of New Zealand's tri-series campaign, an effort that started with a meek loss to Australia and ended with a meek loss to England, up until that point the laughing stock of the cricketing world," writes Richard Boock in The New Zealand Herald.

For starters, there was the excellent impression made by new paceman Mark Gillespie, then there was batsman Lou Vincent, who was injected into the side like a dose of adrenalin and who could forget Jacob Oram's feats at Adelaide and Perth, when he awoke a previously near catatonic Australian public with a hitting blitz that had respected commentators comparing him with Ian Botham and Viv Richards.