And so, with a loss in the one and only T20 game, the Black Caps leave England. We drew the Test series with a loss in the first Test at Lord's, but bounced back admirably to level that series and then we lost the ODI series after England won the fifth and deciding ODI. The T20 means sweet-F-A so who really cares.

I can understand why some people might be a bit down on the Black Caps right now. No, not those of you who started celebrating the Black Caps after their World Cup efforts but those of you who ride or die with this team, I can understand why you might be a bit down. 

(Much like a single T20 game, I couldn't care less for those people who jumped on the Black Caps wagon)

It's never a good feeling to come away from a tour without much reward and I think we can safely say that England won the tour - the Test series was all square and England won the ODI series and that T20, so in theory out of the three different formats that made up the tour, England won 2-0. No one wants any of that.

I've said my piece about England and I've bordered on making excuses for this Black Caps team, but it's important to note that England are good at cricket. In both the Test and ODI arenas, they have the ability and in the ODI's especially they were also riding a wave of cricketing joy. 

But out Black Caps, how do we rate this effort from our team? 

I think overall it has been a successful tour, not because of the 'spirit' in which both teams played or how great the cricket was (T20, Black Cap bandwagoners, add spirit and lots of sixes to this list). It was a success because we achieved a little bit of everything, we didn't sacrifice results to develop players at the start of a 4-year cycle nor did we ignore youth, we did a bit of everything and covered a range of bases.

We did however see new faces show up and perform, which has me smiling from ear to ear. Mitchell Santner was our best bowler in the ODI series, taking the most wickets of any Black Cap bowler with seven and he's shown that he has the potential to be the go to spinner in limited overs cricket. He didn't get too many runs, but we saw enough to suggest that he could fill the boots of Nathan McCullum easily, and he could possibly do Daniel Vettori's role should he continue to improve. 

The other bowler who impressed mightily was Ben Wheeler and it looks like we may have a like-for-like Trent Boult replacement on our hands, albeit not quite in Boult's class. Wheeler played in three ODI's and took five wickets, that's the same/better than Tim Southee, Matt Henry and Mitchell McClenaghan who all played four ODI's.

Wheeler may have to wait his turn, especially to get a Test start, but kiwi cricket fans should be encouraged that we've got another bowler in The Stable. The fact that he's a lefty and bowlers in a similar fashion to Boult suits the needs of the Black Caps nicely.

Cast your mind back to the Test series and it's important to note how good Matt Henry was. In two Test's he took eight wickets and when compared to Southee who also took eight wickets, Henry's stats look pretty good for a third seamer. Henry bowled 86.1 overs while Southee bowled 106 overs and Henry also had the slightly better average of 42.50 to Southee's 49.

Henry has emerged as our best third seaming option in Test's, but it's important to note that with the bigger picture in mind, we have extended our pool of bowlers who can perform in the Test arena. We've got Southee and Boult and the top, with Henry, Neil Wagner and Doug Bracewell able to be called upon as well. 

From this tour, I'd say that Wheeler has overtaken McClenaghan in the Test power rankings. McClenaghan wasn't near his best in the ODI's and Wheeler showed that he's got more tools that would translate well to Test cricket. It was actually a very disappointing ODI series for McClenaghan, he played four ODI's and took four wickets at an average of 71.25.

While our bowling was overall pretty mediocre, especially in the ODI's, we've shown that we are starting to build The Stable and expand its capacity. This will be huge going forward as we can't expect Southee and Boult to carry the Black Caps over the next five years, there needs to be other bowlers standing up and filling that void, which I think we've seen in England can be done. 

The batting side of things is far less interesting; Kane Williamson's really, really good at batting and Ross Taylor has given an example to all you dummies about form in cricket. 

Williamson's average of 41.25 was only bettered by BJ Watling's 84.66 in the Test's, while Williamson scored the most runs for both teams in the ODI's with 396. Williamson's strike rate of 104.48 in the ODI's also makes for lovely reading.

Who was the third best Black Caps batsman behind Williamson and Taylor in the ODI's? Martin Guptill and it's good to see the Guppa back in international cricket. I think the less noise we make about our openers the better, with regards to Test cricket, let's just allow Guptill and Tom Latham time to figure things out while in ODI cricket Guptill has shown that he can play the role of a semi-anchor while Brendon McCullum has a whack. 

I would low key like to see Latham given a run in ODI cricket as well. 

Grant Elliot Watch has led me to be unconvinced about his role in this Black Caps ODI team moving forward. At some point Corey Anderson and Jimmy Neesham will both be healthy and at that point it's hard to see Elliot being picked over them. I can see why Elliot has been shown some faith though, he's a reliable figure and a team man which was perfectly suited to this Black Caps ODI side. 

I'm also unsure about how/where Luke Ronchi and McClenaghan fit in moving forward. Ronchi fits the bill of an experienced player who McCullum can rely on to do his job of keeping wicket and hitting boundaries, but at some stage we need to give a young wicket-keeper a run. This can be done slowly and surely while Ronchi is still in the mix, get a youngin' in there to learn from Ronchi.

I say that under the assumption that BJ Watling won't be an ODI keeper, which is kinda annoying because anytime you pigeon hole someone, it's pretty dumb. Watling's got all the tools to be a success in limited overs cricket, but it looks like that's not part of the plans.

McClenaghan is an odd case. He's at his best taking wickets because that eases the load of all the runs that he leaks and when he ain't taking no wickets, he's just leaking runs. He doesn't appear to be in the mix for a Test spot and it's questionable from this England tour whether he's in the top four seam bowlers, so it's hard to judge where he fits in. At some stage McClenaghan could find himself being overtaken by a few young bucks as well, which wouldn't be a good sign for him.

Overall, I would give this tour of England a 6/10. That's pretty heavily influenced by the results, but it's important to apply some context to those results; a two Test series is so stupid and our ODI side had one eye on the future. We did however take part in an extremely competitive tour and we mustn't forget that despite loosing the ODI series, we came within a whisker of winning it. 

How should you feel about the tour? Excited, don't look at this tour as a single entity, look off into the future. 

The biggest bummer of all of this is that we won't see the Black Caps again for a few months, we'll miss them.

In summary...

• We have good young cricketers pushing for a start, but we also have a very strong core.
• There's pressure to perform and a few players are teetering on the brink, both positively and negatively.
• The Stable grows bigger.
• We have a few good spinners, a necessity.
• Ross Taylor still goes alright.
• Player Of The Tour - Kane Williamson.