It was 1-1 in the series, and the nation rubbed their hands together at the thought of game three. The decider. The Grand Final. It was winner-takes-all stuff. Well, not quite. You see, in their infinite wisdom, New Zealand Cricket decided way back in June that the third Test would be ditched for, wait for it – two Twenty20 games.

The impetus was lost. Overall, it would be safe to suggest that the Test series was average. Very average. In reality, the only talking point to come out of it was the controversial (yet completely legal) running out of Muttiah Muralitharan in Christchurch. The talent on display had been totally overshadowed by a giant red herring, and a forgettable series came to an end.

So to the Twenty/20 games, played under the fresh, new format that will apparently take the world by storm. Right.

Game One, Wellington. It rained. New Zealand batted first (in retro uniforms – again) and frittered away a good start. Sri Lanka batted second. Duckworth/Lewis was the winner on the night. Actually, the real winner was comedy - who’d have thought that the side batting second only needed to bat for five - that’s five - overs to constitute a game?

Game Two, Auckland. It didn’t rain. But it may as well have. Sri Lanka batted first. New Zealand batted second. New Zealand won. It was a yawn-fest.

So the comedy festival rolled out of town, and it was time to hit the One Day Internationals (or ODIs for the sake of convenience), starting in the holiday town of Napier. But the fun was only just beginning.

The New Zealand selectors made the bizarre decision to rest captain Stephen Fleming and leading strike bowler Shane Bond for the first two ODI’s. Or was it three? Nobody really knew. But by now the New Zealand public had been introduced to the word – drum roll please - reconditioning. Most understood the need to rest Bond occasionally (he is pretty fragile apparently), but the resting of Fleming caught a huge number by surprise. Possibly even Fleming.

In Napier, New Zealand got off to a great start with Ross Taylor collecting his maiden century, combining with Nathan Astle to put plenty of early runs on the board. But the innings floundered, and the home side found themselves 50-60 runs short of where they should have been. Their total of 285 was still a very competitive one. Briefly. Sanath Jayasuriya took only 78 balls to reach his hundred, and the Sri Lankans cruised home with an embarrassing 10 overs to spare.

The picturesque ground at Queenstown saw Game Two go down to the wire. Thanks largely once again to Sangakkara, the visitors posted 224, which should really have been a cakewalk for the New Zealand side on a decent batting pitch. Yet once again a solid start was butchered, and it wasn’t until Michael Mason – ably supported by James Franklin - hit the last ball of the innings to the boundary that a win was sealed.

Back to Christchurch for Game Three, and it was Sri Lanka’s turn to look ordinary. Their paltry total of 110 was never going to cut it - until New Zealand conspired to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, finding themselves 70 for six in response. The ship was righted, and the home side went on to win a thoroughly dreadful game of cricket.

Eden Park in Auckland was the venue for Game Four. It would have been nice if somebody told the Black Caps. Jayasuriya once again bludgeoned the home side’s attack, knocking up 70 from a mere 44 balls; unfortunately for New Zealand, his display only delayed the arrival of Sangakkara. The batsman of the tour then finished off the home side with a patient 79. Ironically, that was to be six runs more than New Zealand could muster in total.

In falling over for a pathetic 73, New Zealand managed to create a few records – their biggest losing margin (186 runs), their lowest total against Sri Lanka, their lowest total on home soil, and their second lowest total in any ODI. Chaminda Vaas and Lasith Malinga again cut swathes through an appalling display of batsmanship, with Black Cap after Black Cap sent back to the pavilion in almost identical dismissals.

“A shocker of a track!” I hear you say. “Damned drop in pitches – they are never up to it”. Well, wrong. The pitch died away a little in the later overs, but it was a wicket that should have held few demons for either side. The fact that New Zealand conspired to underachieve so badly on a decent batting wicket made the performance all the more dreadful.

There was no magic from Vettori, Astle or Franklin to steer them home this time – they were not there through a combination of illness and “reconditioning”. Instead, we saw the serial tail-order batsman Bond waltzing out at number eight.

The series was tied at 2-2, and the sides were off to Hamilton for the most foreign of concepts to New Zealand cricket fans - a decider. Again, not quite. Hamilton decided to put on a murky, horrible day. The drizzle never let up, and the game was abandoned without a ball being bowled. It remained 2-2.

And that was that, leaving all three series tied. Ultimately it was not so much a reflection on the quality of both sides, rather an indication of how neither side were able to wrest the initiative away from the other when both had ample opportunity. But, given the trilogy of series were held in New Zealand, the visitors can take away the moral victory.

New Zealand’s ever-growing dependency on their lower middle order to save the day was shown up badly. Their “reconditioning” programme was seen as a bizarre sideshow that failed to give the home side any impetus throughout the ODI series. Perhaps the most telling aspect is that no-one has any idea of what a top-six batting line-up would look like.

That’s not to say the visitors were without their problems. Sri Lanka lacked consistency with their first change bowling options at times, and the form of captain Mahela Jayawardene will have been a concern. However, they do seem the more balanced of the sides, Jayasuriya is in the best form for years, Sangakkara is now consistently performing away from the sub-continent, and their ground fielding is a vast improvement on previous years.

One of the key factors to their likely success at the World Cup is whether Malinga can confuse other players the way he does New Zealand batsmen. If he can, then they are as well placed as anyone to upset Australia.
So, New Zealand bids farewell to the tourists, and after three tours in successive years, we look forward to seeing some different opposition. But don’t get your hopes up –apparently the early word on the street is that New Zealand may well be visited this time next year by . . . our old friends Sri Lanka.