New Zealand flogged England in the First Test on Sunday. England were set 300 for victory, but just couldn't quite get there, all out for 110. Ryan Sidebottom's hat-trick was in vain, as was Aussie Tim Ambrose's debut first innings half-century.

But hang on a tic? Wasn't New Zealand cricket supposed to be on its way down the tubes having lost all its best talent to the Icicle?

It got windy in Wellington on Wednesday. Nationals MP Tau Henare sledged Labour frontbencher Trevor Mallard on the floor of parliament about his personal relationships. Mallard invited Henare to step outside. The rest, as they say in the classics, is history. Though not, sadly, quite history in the Aaron Burr-Alexander Hamilton class.

[insert country name here] is close to its longest run of economic growth since the Second World War, with the economy 28.3 per cent larger in the year to June 2007, than it was ... in December 1999. Average [insert country name here] economic growth ... has been 3.4 per cent per annum ... Our unemployment has halved, and now sits at around the lowest levels reached in the OECD. Latest figures put the rate at 3.6 per cent, and that has been achieved at the bottom of the business cycle.

Nine days before the nosharama at Luna Park Sydney celebrating Australia's ODI legacy, the team suffered its first ten-wicket loss ever in Wellington. Ever. That's 36 years of ever since the Dawn of Ever.

New Zealand all out 218 in 47.4 overs.
Australia 224/8 in 48.4 overs.

Almost an identical scenario to all those games in the B and H World Series Cup back in the early 1980s. One team gets around 215-220 runs in the first innings and the team batting second just gets over the line with a handful of balls to spare. Usually accompanied by Bill Lawry wetting himself.

Pakistan has beaten New Zealand by five runs in the first 20-overs-a-side international at the Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad.

It happened on November 23, 1984. Bad weather delayed the start of the game, which was set at twenty overs for each team when it finally got under way. Pakistan made 157 for 5, New Zealand were held to 152 for 7.

Despite Mudassar Nazar's four-over haul of 4/27, it was Saleem Malik (41 from 40 balls) who was named Man of the Match. See the scorecard for further details.

There were no silly names like "Twenty20" in those days. Remember this as New Zealand faces Australia for its second 20-overs international in two decades tomorrow at Eden Park.