Beaten by South Africa's A-Game

It's tempting to say that Albie Morkel was the difference between the two sides in yesterday's game, but that would be oversimplifying it. South Africa were clinical, sussed out the conditions better, were more flexible with their batting order and their bowlers even utilised the short ball better. But even so, with our explosive batting lineup you would expect to make a better fist of chasing 170 on that pitch.

I hinted earlier how the move from the sluggish Guyana wicket to the considerably quicker Barbados one might not necessarily work in NZ's favour, and one reason for this is that the batsmen aren't the best at fully utilising good batting conditions. Despite being the most experienced international T20 team, and having a lineup full of players with good ODI records, apart from Brendon McCullum NZ's batsmen haven't quite mastered the art of building a good T20 innings.

Apparently there were 33 dot balls bowled during South Africa's innings, but I suspect that number would have been even more when we batted. The same set of issues again held back the batting once McCullum went early - a seeming lack of good scoring options, not enough strike rotation, and the inability to accelerate during the middle overs. Not to mention treating Botha as if he were Muttaiah Muralitharan. You might get away with all this if you're chasing only 140 in guyana, but against taller scores and the better teams it's death.

Considering this, I wish NZ would show a bit more flexibility with their options. If Bond and Southee are being tonked around, Vettori should really be bowling himself early on. And although Jacob Oram has come in for some stick I'd like to see him bat up the order, where he could milk the spinners early on and set himself up to do some real damage later on. NZ are probably hoping he might play the Keiron Pollard/Albie Morkel role lower down, but unlike them he takes a bit of time to move into top gear. The middle order is pretty scratchy on current form so you get the feeling either Baz or Jesse Ryder will have to play a blinder for NZ to put a good score on the board. Perhaps the Pakistan game is where Ryder carries on after getting a start, instead of gifting his wicket to a spinner again.

South Africa at their all-round best are one of the tougher challenges going around, so it wasn't a disgrace losing this game. Nervous times are ahead though, when we meet Pakistan and England.