WE'RE constantly being told that Test cricket is going through a "difficult time" and that notion will not be helped by England's latest batting debacle.

As a die-hard fan of the longest, most challenging format, I couldn't believe what I was seeing when our country's finest walked the plank in Auckland on Thursday. All out for 58. 

Attempting to explain the meltdown, TV commentators used phrases like "under-cooked" and "rusty" to describe our batsmen.

But unless I'm mistaken, they've just spent four months in Australia facing the best bowling attack in the world?

In New Zealand though, the poor lambs have to deal with the "moving ball". By that, they can expect some deviation off the pitch, or swing through the air. 

Just like playing cricket in England, then. Only, England's players travel more reluctantly than a barrel of Guinness.

For Auckland, read Trent Bridge. The wicket was not spitting like an Indian bunsen burner, or bouncing like an Australian trampoline. 

It did exactly what Alastair Cook, Joe Root and the other unmentionables have come to expect on pitches IN ENGLAND, IN ENGLISH CONDITIONS.

Where were the stout defensive blocks, the leaves outside off stump (not tree foliage, but a decision not to play the ball at all), or the desire to hide in the trenches until those rotten swing bowlers had gone away?

Moeen Ali even missed a non-deviating full toss, for heaven's sake. Why is he still in the team? He was a broken man at the end of the Ashes series and two months in snowy England since then has clearly done nothing to resolve his mental and technical frailities. 

For the first time, in interview coach Trevor Bayliss looked shaken from his usually unflappable perch. Has this meekest, calmest of men finally run out of positive thoughts to transmit to his team?

Barely more than five years ago, England were ranked the number 1 Test playing nation in the world. It has been an alarming downward spiral, which culiminated in one of the most horrible days for English cricket for 20 years this week.

Clearly the likes of Pietersen, Trott and Strauss are tough to replace, but the stark fact is that we are currently being humbled by a country with a population 15 times smaller than ours. 

I want Test cricket to rise again. I want to see another great West Indian team, a resurgence of Sri Lanka, the development of Zimbabwe and perhaps one or two Associate nations entering the Test arena.

If Test cricket is like settling down with a good book on holiday, Twenty/20 is akin to browsing social media - quick and entertaining, but ulimately unfulfilling.