You don't have to talk long to an ex-fast bowler before he will tell you just how hard the job is. He will moan that it is physically arduous and mainly thankless, as people are usually more interested in seeing the ball hit for sixes and fours than swung and seamed with a subtlety sometimes apparent only with the aid of slow-motion cameras.

Then along comes a day like this one at McLean Park, and the business is seen in all its simplistic glory. In a stupendous afternoon session, Ryan Sidebottom turned the match around with a spell of bowling that took the breath away: he bowled tirelessly from lunch until tea, and then for two overs beyond, and made his job look the most straightforward in the world.

Of course it is not, but when a bowler has found a rhythm and is among the wickets, the last thing he wants to do is stop. Adrenalin and ambition kick in. As the cliché goes, the captain couldn’t get the ball out of his hand.

The stakes were obviously not as high here, but Sidebottom’s spell of 14.4-2-37-6 from 1.10pm to 3.45pm broken only by tea was reminiscent of Andrew Flintoff’s marathon on the Sunday of the Oval Test in 2005. Then, in a superhuman effort of will, the England all-rounder, at the peak of his powers, smothered Australia’s hopes of gaining a first-innings lead with a spell, split by lunch, of 14.2-3-30-4.

In similarly heroic vein, Matthew Hoggard carried England to victory (with Flintoff’s help) in Johannesburg earlier that same year, claiming 12 wickets in 53 overs spread across the third, fourth and fifth days of the match.

Thankfully, the weather in Napier was cool, otherwise Sidebottom might not have managed to keep going as he did.

In all, he bowled from one end for all but three overs directly before lunch when Michael Vaughan took him off in an attempt to get James Anderson into the game after his previous over (from the other end) had been spanked for 18 by Stephen Fleming. The move was a hopeless failure. Two overs from Anderson cost 27 before Vaughan summoned Monty Panesar to block up the end for the final over of the session.

At that point it was hard to imagine England being in a much deeper hole. At the rate New Zealand were going they would overhaul England’s modest total well before stumps. It was going to take something pretty special to drag England back into the game – and prevent them losing a series they were expecting to win - and it pretty much had to be Sidebottom doing it.

He had already enjoyed a fine series. He had claimed a hat-trick, and a six-for, in Hamilton, and a five-for in Wellington. But in the first instance, his efforts came late in the piece, effectively too late to alter the flow of the match towards New Zealand. In the second, England were well on top. Here, the fate of the series hung in the balance.

Sidebottom did at least have Stuart Broad by way of dependable support. For much of the afternoon, he operated as the ideal foil: an accurate right-armer generating steep bounce while Sidebottom deployed left-arm swing. It could be a partnership that serves England well over the next few years.

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