5 reasons why New Zealand did not perform to potential

#2 Guptill-Ronchi conundrum

Luke Ronchi was one of the few Kiwi batsmen who put up a fight in the entire series

When Mike Hesson stated that Ronchi was going to be the backup opener on tour, lots of eyebrows were raised. Considering Guptill's form, it was a brave call to not pick any settled opener. Jeet Raval, who was a sightseer in the African tour, missed out.

But Ronchi put all that to rest in the warm-up game by cracking a brilliant hundred. He showed he had the right game to belong there, while Guptill failed yet again. When New Zealand walked out to bat in the first Test in Kanpur though, it was still Guptill opening. And he scored 21 and 0, falling to his age old issue against the incoming delivery. Ronchi, meanwhile, made a fighting 80 in 120 balls, one of the best innings of the tour for the Kiwis.

Yet, surprisingly, it was Guptill again at the top in Kolkata. Remember, they had Henry Nicholls, a middle-order batsman, in form, (he scored a composed 79 against South Africa in his last Test innings) waiting on the sidelines. Instead of opening with Ronchi and pushing in Nicholls in at 4 or 5 ahead of Guptill or at least moving Guptill to the middle order, they stuck to their failed tactics. They did include Nicholls in the eleven but he came in at 3, a spot he hasn't batted at before. Rather unsurprisingly, the results were the same. That New Zealand failed to adapt to the situation and chop and change accordingly, something they did brilliantly under Brendon McCullum, would go down against them more than the 3-0 loss.