Gooch hints at England complacency at start of series

Batting coach Graham Gooch described the tourists’ fortunes in these terms after they reached stumps on day four of the final Test with a mighty task on their hands to somehow cling on for a drawn series.

Even that, Gooch also admitted, would be far below their own expectations – not to mention those of their many supporters – when they set out on this three-match series.

Peter Fulton’s second century in the match at Eden Park – his 136 in the first innings was the 34-year-old’s first in Test cricket – helped New Zealand to 224-6 declared.

England, in theoretical pursuit of a world-record 481 to win, then needed to bat out the four-and-a-half remaining sessions to close out a third successive stalemate and therefore a 0-0 outcome.

By stumps, they were 90-4 – minus three of their likeliest saviours at the top of the order, including captain Alastair Cook – and it was hard to see how they might keep the Kiwis at bay for another 90 overs.

Gooch said: “I think it’s a great reality check that you can’t take any team lightly, and you can’t play people on what it says in the rankings or what it says on a piece of paper.

“You have to play good cricket on the field, to compete, and certainly in probably two out of the three matches New Zealand have been in the ascendancy.”

England’s hosts are ranked eighth in the International Cricket Council table, to the tourists’ second – a statistic open to revision today, following India’s 4-0 defeat of Australia.

Gooch conceded that it is conceivable, on some level at the start of the series, that England allowed themselves to under-estimate the task they faced in New Zealand.

“Our performance is not up to the standard we’ve produced in the past, on a consistent basis – so we’ll have to look at that,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve taken them lightly after the first match, where they dominated the game.”

England are in obvious danger of finishing an otherwise encouraging winter, after their historic win in India, on a low.

“We didn’t play well... they’ve out-bowled us, and they’ve out-batted us,” said Gooch of the Auckland Test.

“That isn’t what we wanted when we came here, but credit to them. We’ve had some great Test series in recent times, but in this one, we’ve not produced our best. It’s not the sort of conclusion to the winter tours we would have wanted, that’s for sure.

“We wanted to finish strongly going into our summer, build on the Test cricket we played in India towards the middle and end of that series. Here, we’ve not found that form. So we’ve got to be disappointed.”