New Zealand v England: Jonathan Trott refuses to blame lack of preparation for poor England start in Dunedin England appeared intent on dominating New Zealand, looking to set the agenda with the bat despite the tricky conditions on breezy and chilly morning. But Neil Wagner and Bruce Martin, neither of whom had played a Test at home before, shared eight wickets as a succession of English batsmen fell to poor strokes before New Zealand seized on the chance to bat in better conditions by reaching the close just 36 behind on 131 for nought. "All you can say to each other is it can't get any worse," he said. I don't think we were too positive. It was just poor shots. The shots were on, we just did not execute them right. Every batsman will put their hand up and admit we did not play the way we should have and could have done. The compact nature of modern tours is due to the amount of cricket played across three formats but playing just one four-day match in Queenstown to prepare for the Test always meant several batsmen would be acclimatising in the heat of a Test series. But this is not a new phenomenon for England. First Tests often start badly. They were bowled out for 191 by India in Ahmedabad last November, 193 by Sri Lanka in Colombo and 192 by Pakistan in Dubai. Apart from the whitewash in the Emirates, England have used the criticism and the disappointment as a motivation to improve but Trott admits they had hoped to avoid needing such a kick on this tour. We made a conscious effort of trying to start the series really well. We looked at that and said we have always been on the back foot at the start of a series and we tried to correct it but did not get it right. There wasn't much there in the wicket. We got ourselves out with poor shots and misjudgement. Andy [Flower] is pretty philosophical but he knows the right time to put his foot down and say that is not good enough and this might be what happens. I am not happy with how things went, nobody is, so I don't think there is any need for hairdryer treatment. It is first day of a three match Test series and there are 13 days of Test cricket left and hopefully we can win those.