AFTER the fuss had died down and the result officially declared that New Zealand had won the match and the series, there was one remark that caught my attention. Peter Moores, asked about the inability of his opening bowlers to slip in even one yorker in the first 10 overs of carnage, said that the bowlers had to “make their own decisions”.

Whether or not the yorker had been discussed or advocated by Moores or his captain remains a mystery, though I cannot believe it would have been missed that a delivery which has been acknowledged for years as the default in one-day cricket when batsmen are looking to get after bowlers at the end of an innings, must therefore have similar validity at the start of an innings.

Let us assume that the idea was mentioned even though Paul Collingwood, when asked a similar question after the run-fest in Napier, suggested that a badly directed yorker can go as far as any other badly directed ball. There are various issues that emerge.

Firstly, can I suggest in turn to England’s one-day captain that a slightly mis-delivered yorker does not go as far as, for instance, the slightly misdirected length ball and for evidence may I just offer the series of Brendon McCullum sixes that pinged into various parts of the AMI Stadium. A batsman set on striking the ball can get underneath length and hit it a long way. The most likely error with an attempted yorker is that it is slightly overpitched and becomes a low full toss, which is in turn notoriously hard to hit for six. Viv Richards did it now and again but few batsmen have the power to match him.

So let us presume that it is not a bad ball to bowl under pressure from a McCullum-type batsman. If one accepts that decisions have to be made on the hoof out in the middle then the men to make those decisions are the captain and, in this case, the bowlers. Did Collingwood suggest to either Sidebottom, Anderson or Broad that the odd yorker might be a good idea? Apparently not. Did any of them decide that the odd yorker might be handy? Apparently not.

When England began their defence of 242 they must have known that those opening overs were going to be important and must have planned what to do if either McCullum or Jesse Ryder got going. In which case they were guilty of being unable to put such plans into action.

If there is one thing Collingwood and his team have to learn it is that skill under that sort of pressure is the thing that will turn them into a consistently good one-day team. For all Moores’ protestations that this team has been putting in good performances since he took over, I can only say that until they learn to cope better with these situations they will remain at best unpredictable.

In a way the same sort of reluctance to adapt at the start of their own innings has also been a feature of this series. The first match in Wellington showed this frailty of ambition and there were echoes of that in Christchurch. If you cast your mind back to Sri Lanka winning the World Cup in 1996, that was achieved on the gamble taken consistently by the top five in their batting order to carry on playing aggressively regardless of falling wickets. Now I would not necessarily advocate that Cook, Mustard, Bell, Pietersen and Collingwood adapt the same approach but a tweak on the dial towards a more positive general attitude if things do not immediately go to plan would be good.

When everyone plays to the best of their ability, as was the case in Auckland in the third match, then Plan A is good enough and the personnel are certainly good enough. It is when things go awry that too much time is used up working out what to do next. The confidence to think clearly and quickly will come in time. The chicken and the egg conundrum is that the confidence will strengthen with victories but the victories under pressure are going to be hard to come by until the self-belief to take the right risks is stronger.