Graphic: Targeting the right areas

Time for the captain and coach to earn their corn. Like a golfer who has just missed a gimme and must put the memory to the back of his mind before he tees off at the next hole, so New Zealand's management must find a way to enable their team to move on from defeat at Old Trafford. That they ought to be 1-0 up and in an unbeatable position has probably been eating away at them for a week.

How to move forward after a morale-sapping defeat is difficult. The past must be analysed so the chances of a repeat are reduced, but dwelling on what went wrong is likely to obscure the many good things that emerged from Old Trafford and, indeed, the past five matches between England and New Zealand. But for the odd session here and there, barely a sheet of Rizla has separated them.

Yesterday, contemplating the week to come, Daniel Vettori thought it a good thing that New Zealand went off for a low-key county match against Northamptonshire “under less scrutiny”, rather than straight into another Test match, which “might have been a tough ask”. There were hundreds for Aaron Redmond and Ross Taylor, half-centuries for Brendon McCullum and Peter Fulton and wickets for Tim Southee, who was included in their XII yesterday on a horses-for-courses policy. They came away from Northampton in decent fettle and “excited about the opportunity to start afresh”.

There was plenty of opportunity in Northampton, also, Vettori said, to talk at length about his team's propensity to collapse in the third or fourth innings. Even in the victorious first Test in Hamilton in March - the closest New Zealand have come in recent times to a complete performance - there was a second-innings shocker. Not that Vettori offered a ready cure; while it is good to talk, it is the doing that counts. As the New Zealand captain said: “It's a tag that will stay with us until we do something about it.”

It is the batting that causes Vettori concern. James Marshall is a casualty of poor form and has been replaced by Peter Fulton at No3, but while Daniel Flynn, disfigured at Old Trafford and the dentist's best friend since, is ready to play, he is short of form and, presumably, confidence. Brendon McCullum continues to be troubled by back stiffness, but is a certain starter.

New Zealand can draw comfort from England having lost their past two Tests at Trent Bridge. Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan spun them out two years ago in conditions that Michael Vaughan, the England captain, said yesterday, as he announced an unchanged team for the fifth match in succession, were “more like Colombo than England”. Last year left-arm swing bowling of the highest pedigree from Zaheer Khan and R.P.Singh for India brought Peter Moores his first defeat as an England coach and, after Jellygate, his most uncomfortable moment.

It is likely that conditions for this match will replicate last year rather than 2006. Steve Birks, the groundsman, bemoaned the rain that has swamped Trent Bridge over the past seven days, with the result that the pitch - damp underneath and crusty on top - is a day or so short of preparation and the outfield is heavy and lush. It has also become a Trent Bridge theory that, since the ground's redevelopment last winter, the ball has swung more. If true, Huw Evans's new £8.2million stand, which looms high over the Bridgford Road side of the ground, is likely to exaggerate any movement.

Vaughan believed that his attack was “perfectly suited” to the conditions; with two genuine swing bowlers in Ryan Sidebottom and James Anderson and two bowlers, in Sidebottom and Stuart Broad, who are at home here, it is hard to argue with that. Vettori, instead, focused on the quality of the balls, saying that the 2008 batch of Duke balls are more variable than those from 2007. Wherever possible, he said, they look to change the ball, given that the replacement balls are from last year. So far, the umpires have been accommodating. If they read this and realise what is going on, they may become less so.

What with the talk of balls and concrete stands and thermodynamics helping swing, it felt as if silly season was descending on Trent Bridge. It was no surprise, then, that news emerged of New Zealand's secret weapon for this Test: their kit. Some players are to wear high-tech bowler's trousers, better to shine the ball, while some will don IonX Baselayer underwear, which is said to improve performance by 2.7 per cent. Quite what kind of performance was not made clear.

Forget the captain and coach, strategy and psychology, if New Zealand do turn things around, it will be the underwear wot won it.