When you are playing the team ranked seventh in the world, you don't want to beat them. You want to hammer them. You want to crush them. You want - in the nicest possible way, chaps, absolutely nothing personal - to humiliate them. In an ideal world, you want people to be wondering what these men are doing on the same pitch.

This is what England have failed to do in this Test. New Zealand cricketers may not be terribly good, by the standards of the great players of the game, but there is one thing they are terribly good at. That is getting the best out of themselves. They are very good at playing the best they possibly can, and that is much rarer than you would think.

Authority. That's what England cricket teams seldom possess. And though no one has played badly, England have failed to exert authority over this game. Partly this is because of a certain diffidence in the make-up of England cricketers - English-born ones, at any rate - and partly this is because the New Zealanders wouldn't let them do any exerting.

On Thursday, England's game plan took the bully's form of inserting the opposition and exploiting helpful conditions. It worked well enough till Brendon McCullum staged a marvellous fightback. Still, Monty got him in the end, so yesterday's plan was to hustle the New Zealanders out and start piling up the runs.

But it didn't work. What we had was a fine example of an inferior team absolutely and categorically refusing to act like an inferior team. The top order had failed, but the bowlers did the job for them. New Zealand cricket teams tend to be very good at being precisely that - a team. And so Daniel Vettori and Jacob Oram clobbered some runs and Kyle Mills extorted frustration as he hung around for more than an hour. The total of 277 was hardly a masterpiece and it may not be enough, but it was a hundred more than England would have hoped.

England began the build-up to the great Ashes summer of 2005 by beating New Zealand at home three times in three Tests. It was the beginning of a process that created a united team of strong minds and a clear sense of self-worth. Self-worth as individuals, but above all self-worth as a unit. If this process is to be replicated, it needs to begin and it is this second part, this sense of being part of a crack unit, that needs to be worked on.

In the field, a team's self-image often comes from the possession of a weapon of destruction. At his best - remember that? - Stephen Harmison's pace and bounce not only terrified the opposition, it made every member of the team feel that he was part of something special, that he was a part of that frightening and destructive force.

England lack a bowler of that type, although Andrew Flintoff can do it if he is ever fit again. Even in gloriously helpful English conditions, England failed to get the New Zealanders on the run. It was hard work and they stuck to it well enough, but there was never that sense of authority. This lack was the great failing of Tim Henman. He had all the talents needed to win a Wimbledon; all save one. Had it been in his nature to take control of a match, a place, an opponent, he would have won it all right. It was only that little streak of diffidence that held him back.

This England team need to slay the inner Henman if they are to become a force in the Ashes summer of 2009. It starts with a need to do rather more than win these next three matches. The job passed on to the batsmen after a bowling display that was pretty good, but unquestionably pretty Henmanesque. You remember the way that the old boy would win the first set superbly and suddenly find himself at one set all and break point down in the third? Then rally and win and tell us afterwards about all the positives he could take from this? England have some positives to take from the past two days, but not enough.