New Zealand was staring down the barrel of its fourth straight defeat against Australia after it struggled to 4-114 at the halfway stage of its innings in the final Chappell-Hadlee one-day match in Wellington on Saturday.
Sent in to bat first after Australian captain Ricky Ponting won his fifth toss of the series, New Zealand was attempting to rebuild its innings with only Scott Styris left among the recognised batsmen.
He was 32 not out with captain Daniel Vettori on 16 not out.
It was another tame batting effort despite all the talk in the home camp about players realising they needed to bat with more intelligence.
If that was the case it wasn't apparent in the manner of dismissals during the innings.
New Zealand could not have had a worse start.
Brendon McCullum, the key man in the quest to post a competitive score, was on one from 13 balls when he pushed at a ball from Clint McKay which flew easily to Ricky Ponting at mid-off.
Five balls later disaster struck when Martin Guptill was on seven from 14 balls when he was run out to leave the home side on 2-25.
Shanan Stewart made it to six before he played an ordinary shot off the last ball of Mitchell Johnson's first over to be caught behind by Brad Haddin.
At 3-32 New Zealand was in dire straits.
Having put in the effort to restore the side's fortunes, Ross Taylor attempted to pull a ball wide outside off stump from Shane Watson (1-19 off five overs).
The ball flew high to the backward square-leg boundary where Doug Bollinger held the catch.
Taylor had played in a controlled fashion to score 30 from 55 balls and New Zealand was left at 4-85.
Bollinger, so often the focal point of New Zealand's attack mode was the least expensive of the Australian bowlers with 0-17 from his five overs.