The BLACKCAPS went to Australia full of hope while us fans kicked back, full of hope. Hope that this Test series will be the perfect time to give the Aussies a touch of their own medicine as they bid farewell to a few veterans and our BLACKCAPS looked to continue their rise up the cricketing world. The hope we had for the BLACKCAPS was a mixture of Australia's perceived weaknesses and the ability that we knew the kiwis had.

A 2-0 series loss? Well that was also the product of Australia's doing and the BLACKCAPS failings. Australia - as Australia tend to do - rolled out some relatively inexperienced cricketers who did the job, flexing their depth muscles and sending warning shots to the cricketing world; 'don't forget about us, we're still good'.

So how do we judge this series from a kiwi perspective? Well the positives are put in the shade by the inability of the BLACKCAPS to match Australia in gritty Tests. There were positives though...

• Mitchell Santner looks good. We only saw him in the third Test as he was overlooked for the first two and Santner threw his name into the hat, not just for the all-rounders spot as he could put pressure on Mark Craig's numero uno spinning spot.
• Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor scored runs. It's always nice when your best batsmen score runs; three batsmen scored over 400 runs this series with David Warner being one along with Williamson and Taylor.
• For most of the series Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Doug Bracewell did the trick. I see this trio as being The Stable's starters and form the core of the kiwi bowling group. Even though they didn't quite take as many wickets as we'd like - Boult was the only kiwi bowler to take more than 10 wickets with 13 - they did bowl at their best for stages throughout the series. Some more than others.

The BLACKCAPS fell short in their inability to build pressure as a bowling group and they lacked any contributions from other batsmen besides Williamson and Taylor. Eight centuries were scored by Australia with everyone in their top-five bar Shaun Marsh scoring a century, compare that to the kiwis where the likes of Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum and BJ Watling struggled to score more than 100 runs in the series.

Australia flexed all over the BLACKCAPS, showing them how to bat in Australia which can also be put down to an overall bowling performance that never really looked like putting Australia under pressure. The Adelaide Test will leave a nice taste as the pink ball moved around under lights in combination with a grassy pitch, which suited the kiwi nibblers perfectly. In the third Test we also saw the kiwi bowlers hit consistently good areas, forcing Australia's batsmen into a false stroke, something which was absent in the first two Tests.

Boult, Southee and Bracewell are bowlers who are at their best when the ball is swinging and/or nibbling around off the seam. When this wasn't the case - I had better include Matt Henry in this as he played in Brisbane on a flat pitch - our bowlers struggled to revert back to line and length. Along with Mark Craig who was arguably the biggest loser from this series, the kiwis served up a few bad balls each over, allowing Australia to score freely and confusing the shit out of Brendon McCullum.

Australia like bowlers with pace because when the conditions aren't helping the bowlers they can ruffle feathers and create wickets by hurrying batsmen up. All our bowlers hover around the 135km/h mark which is fine if they are more focused on hitting the top of off-stump every ball, which they struggled to do for much of this series.

All of this once again put the captaincy of McCullum in the spotlight. All out attack is cool but a fact of life in Test cricket is flat pitches and as captain you've got to know when to take out a catcher to save a few singles for example. This was and is a catch-22 as McCullum wasn't helped by his bowlers, although he also didn't appear to be able to resort to a plan-B where he'd dry up the runs.

2-0 and thoroughly out-played for 60, maybe 70 percent of this series. While the BLACKCAPS move on to face Sri Lanka in Aotearoa, where they'll enjoy pitches which suit them perfectly, we need to see the BLACKCAPS start to get results overseas. This year they drew a series in England which they could have won and here we are after a 2-0 series loss to Australia. 

The BLACKCAPS should win Tests and series' at home. To go to the next level and to establish themselves as a true top three/four Test team, they've gotta produce the goods away from home and win Tests.