A serious error of judgement by Brendon McCullum, in his first game as the New Zealand captain, enabled England to take charge of the first Twenty20 international. Opting to replace Jesse Ryder with Jeetan Patel after a single, successful over, McCullum then watched as Dimitri Mascarenhas whacked four sixes off the spin bowler.
England had begun to stall when Mascarenhas, who had scratched around for three runs from eight balls, began to lift Patel high in his favourite arc from long on to wide midwicket. McCullum had a prime view from behind the stumps. The 16th over cost 26 in all while a bemused Ryder, on debut, ended with unusual Twenty20 figures of 1-0-2-1.
Anything beyond 180 is usually very competitive and New Zealand were behind the pace by the time that Mascarenhas joined the England attack. With two wickets including a run out in his first over and the important dismissal of Scott Styris to a drag-on in his second, the Hampshire player must have known that this would be his night.
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He may have felt concerned that somebody was tempting fate by confirming his man of the match award on the giant screen with three overs remaining and Jacob Oram still firing with the strength of a lumberjack. Ultimately, though, England won with an ease that will leave McCullum to reflect on the high price of one false move.
After a dreadful ICC World Championship in South Africa in the autumn, England can be happy with much of the performance. It is the nature of the format that batsmen get out when, in the 50 over game, they would expect to play a big innings, but enough of them chipped in at a healthy rate to establish a challenging target.
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Phil Mustard set the tone with a pair of fours in the first over and then kept wicket extremely well, as he had in the two warm-up matches at Christchurch. The New Zealand bowling was more accurate - only a single wide conceded - but the loss of so many experienced players over the past year as well as the injury to Daniel Vettori, has exposed the shallowness of their pool.