I'M off to New Zealand tomorrow. It's a tough job but someone has to do it. Blah, blahAnd, no, I'm not escaping merely to avoid the hysteria surrounding Wales' now inevitable Grand Slam.

I'm actually off to cover England's cricketing Test series.

And, boy, do I hope they perform better than they did in the recent one-day international series.

For they were horrible. As horrible as Italian centre Gonzalo Canale was in dropping the ball with the line at his mercy last Saturday in Cardiff.

Like Italy's backs (or indeed England's) at flowing movements, we're just not getting any better at one-day cricket.

For, let's face it, New Zealand are poor. No, actually, they're worse than that. They're crap.

Apologies for using that word but it seems entirely appropriate and, if Brian Moore could use it during his commentary of the England/ France game on Saturday night, then surely I can here.

I cannot for the life of me remember what Moore was referring to but if it was the performance of England's full back Iain Balshaw then he wouldn't be far wrong.

Often sporting selections are controversial, but usually you can sit back, look objectively at them and pinpoint at least one valid reason why the selection might have been made.

With Balshaw you cannot. It is simply unfathomable.

And meanwhile Wales have unearthed a cracker of a full back.

For me Lee Byrne has not only been Wales' player of the Six Nations so far, he has been THE player of the tournament so far.

Big shout, yes. But Byrne is a big man with a big left boot who is carving out the biggest of reputations.

How many people had him in their Wales team at the start of the tournament?

Come on, be honest. I certainly didn't. Everyone seemed to be saying that if you could combine Byrne's boot with Morgan Stoddart's running you'd have the ideal full back.

Rubbish. Byrne is the real deal. He can kick, run and tackle. His one-on-one defending has improved immeasurably. Once he was susceptible to being stepped too easily. Not now.

Anyway I've been sidetracked. Back to the cricket. What has improved in England's one-day game?

Nothing really. Sussex's Luke Wright has shown he can cut the pressure at the top level - bowling a brilliant last over to secure a tie in Napier - but that is about it.

England still have no idea how to bat in the powerplay overs at the start of an innings.

Durham wicketkeeper Phil Mustard has been much heralded but for me he is not the answer.

He made one score - on that featherbed with short boundaries at Napier - but otherwise failed. And this against a thoroughly mediocre New Zealand seam attack. Imagine if he was facing somebody decent.

And England have in Alastair Cook and Ian Bell two batsmen in the top three too similar and too old-fashioned in their approaches for today's one-day game.

They are both very fine batsmen but simply lack the firepower required. You can play one of them but not both. I'd keep Cook personally. It would be harsh on Bell but tough decisions need to be made.

As they do in two other areas. Firstly the captaincy.

Paul Collingwood had an excellent series with the bat but I was disappointed with his captaincy.

Here speaks someone who was an awful captain, so I know what I'm talking about!

Collingwood is simply not sharp enough in thought. He sees things too late. One-day cricket requires speedy decisions. Collingwood missed out on too many of them in New Zealand. The sooner England have the same captain for Test and one-dayers the better.

I've mentioned this topic in these pages before but it was merely confirmed during this last series.

Who that man should be is clearly a dilemma. It's always been Andrew Strauss for me - batting in the middle order in one-day cricket if you're wondering about contradiction with my above statement about stodginess at the top of the order.

He's manoeuvred the ball around well in the middle overs before and can do it again. But let's hope he makes the Test side next week in Hamilton and scores plenty of runs. It would help everyone.

The other area is the fast bowling. James Anderson had a shocker. And Stuart Broad didn't do brilliantly either.

When Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder were going hard at them they seemed to have no answers; no cunning and artfulness to fox the swinging blades.

Playing only three specialist bowlers was not a great idea either. Nor not playing a spinner. The fielding, ahGoodness I could go on. I'm not impressed, in case you hadn't gathered.

We're better at Test cricket though, aren't we? That's my reason for going. I'm going to be met at Auckland airport by a chap called Dale. Adrian is his first name, I think. Played a bit, they reckon. Great stuff. Can't wait to see the old boy again.