England’s progress as a one-day side under Peter Moores took a significant hit in Christchurch yesterday with another defeat to New Zealand in a game they needed to win to draw the series. Three late wickets briefly revived their hopes before rain decisively intervened with New Zealand, on 213 for six, needing 30 from 13 overs.

Paul Collingwood claimed England had “a bit of a sniff” but with Ryan Sidebottom, who had just removed Daniel Flynn and Jacob Oram in two balls, bowled out and Ross Taylor well set, it was hard to see where four more wickets would have come from.

New Zealand were adjudged winners by 34 runs on Duck-worth-Lewis, a margin that brooked no argument, and a final score of 3-1 fairly reflected the difference between the sides in the series even though it would have surprised both camps given New Zealand’s losses in personnel and England’s supremacy in the Twenty20s.

England should still prevail in the Tests but they will be concerned at news that Steve Harmison is receiving treatment on his lower back, a problem that hindered him in Sri Lanka. Chris Tremlett has been called up as cover for the warm-up matches that start tomorrow.

Once again then, English assumptions of superiority have been confounded. After worthy wins over India and Sri Lanka, England were entitled to be optimistic, but they continue to play naive 50-overs cricket.

Another slow start cost them dear here. At the halfway point they had only 105 on the board and with their top five gone for 128 they were in grave danger of not making 200. Thanks to clean hitting from Luke Wright, who top-scored with 47 from 40 balls, and Dimitri Mascarenhas the last five overs yielded 65, but a total of 242 was never likely to be enough.

England’s plodding approach was once more starkly exposed by the aggression of Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder, whose posting of 103 in 11 overs would have been considered a healthy start in Twenty20. James Anderson completed a nightmare series by conceding 16 runs in one over and 22 in another and even the dependable Sidebottom was struck for successive sixes by McCullum, whose 77 from 43 balls lifted his tally from the five matches to 261 runs at a strike-rate of 128.6. Ryder’s series figures were 196 at 91.2, Jamie How’s 201 at 91.4.

Those are the sort of strike-rates that all sides should demand of their top three in ODIs, where the early fielding restrictions must be capitalised on. But England couldn’t win a donkey-derby with their starts: Alastair Cook’s 184 runs at a strike-rate of 66.5, and Ian Bell’s 145 runs at 80.1 are simply not good enough, while Phil Mustard managed an explosive start only on Napier’s featherbed.

Mustard's skied catch in the third over condemned England to inside-lane driving for most of their innings. In using up more than one-third of England’s allotted deliveries, Cook and Bell failed to clear the ropes once, just as they had done throughout the series – overall New Zealand’s top three tallied 22 sixes to England’s four – though credit must go to Daniel Vettori for a masterly display of mid-innings strangulation. It is not as though England’s early caution preserves wickets, as no one has scored a hundred in any of their last 11 ODIs.

If Cook and Collingwood fell to clever bowling from Vettori, Bell and Kevin Pietersen had less excuse for holing out in the deep, Pietersen having taken no time to play himself in against Jeetan Patel. Wright’s runs might just be enough to earn him a run at the top of the order.

England’s lack of bowling fire-power is another concern. They did not dismiss New Zealand in the series and Anderson and Stuart Broad were so profligate they would have been expensive in Harrods. Mascarenhas didn’t play in two games or bowl his full overs in the others and without a quality spinner, the attack had an uneasy sameness.

England fought to regain ground once another smart piece of fielding from Pietersen had broken New Zealand’s opening stand and had umpire Billy Bowden upheld Collingwood's early lbw shout against Scott Styris the result might have been different. But England’s perspiration couldn’t make up for their lack of inspiration.