5. England v New Zealand, The Oval, London. August, 1999.
New Zealand won by 83 runs.
Having been ****ed up by the selectors when they were captains, by 1999 Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch were England management (with David Graveney and David Lloyd) themselves and they returned the favour. Captain hands on misery to captain. They picked eighteen players including a sprinkle of new caps, none of which endured long England careers (Habib, Giddens, Maddy and Read). The gloves were again taken off Alec Stewart, in Birmingham, and yet again returned to him, at the Oval. The allegedly unpopular Phil Tufnell and Andy Caddick were recalled, and were superb all series.
Triumphant against South Africa just a year earlier, an Ashes defeat and another bad World Cup saw the back of Alec Stewart, who at times had been keeping and opening as well as tossing the coin. England had a new skipper in Nasser Hussain. He got his greatest hits in early, making a disastrous mistake at the toss at Lord's, running out a batting partner and breaking his own finger. Graham Thorpe took over as captain at Lord's, but (after the returning Mike Atherton declined) Mark Butcher was skipper at Old Trafford. At the Oval, not only was Butcher not captain. he was out the side, replaced as opener by debutant Darren Maddy.
All summer it was hard to score runs. The pitches were difficult and New Zealand only made three hundreds and seven half centuries in the four Tests. In contrast, England made no tons at all, and six fifties. In Birmingham, 21 wickets fell in one day.The England player to get nearest to three figures was Alex Tudor, who scored 99* in chasing down a tricky 211 at Edgbaston; but the strongest reaction to this win was that Graham Thorpe should have let him get his first hundred. England lost at Lord's and were saved by the weather in Manchester. Chris Cairns had developed a slower ball (learned from Franklyn Stephenson) which comically disconcerted England all summer, most memorably Chris Read at Lord's who was yorked trying to duck a bouncer.
Hussain returned as skipper for the decisive fourth Test. Maddy and Giddens were in. Ronnie Irani was back. Having erred in batting at Edgbaston, Hussain erred by bowling at the Oval on a pitch that got progressively harder to bat on. Whenever England threatened to get on top in the field, they lost control. In the first innings, Dan Vettori (51) batting at ten helped the tail support Stephen Fleming's five and a half hour 66* turning 87-6 into 236; allowing a first innings lead of 153. In the second innings, 79-7 became 162 thanks to Chris Cairns' 80 batting at eight.
England were never going to get the 246 runs to win, but at 123-2 and Thorpe (44) and Atherton (64) together, there was the mirage of hope. There is nothing like a batting collapse at the end to emphasis an unequal struggle ending in defeat. England's last eight fell for 39, and 6-19, with Dion Nash magnificent, as he and Cairns had been all series with the ball. This was the England team of the three number elevens, Tufnell, Giddens and Mullally. The Kiwis had Vettori at ten.
In 1996, Wisden had developed a Test league table, the Wisden World Championship. With this loss at the Oval, for the first time England were bottom of the pile. At last, there was proof. Lloyd, Gooch and Gatting were sacked. The sponsors were pulling out. As Nasser Hussain stood on the balcony accepting the boos of the last day crowd; it seemed like things couldn't get any worse. And if they did, cricket was over as a major spectator sport in this country. Few had the resilience for much more of this. This absolute zero was to be the pitiful inheritance of new coach, Duncan Fletcher.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63844.html
I always say that everybody's right.