New Zealand v Zimbabwe, 2011-12

In advance, there seemed little reason for Zimbabwe to fear their first overseas Test for nearly seven years. Not only had they come within a whisker of claiming the one-off Test at Bulawayo a few months earlier, having already chased down 329 to win one of the one-day internationals. And in the warm-up game before this match, they took a first-innings lead against a strong New Zealand XI.

Then reality bit, painfully so: blown away inside a day for 51 and 143, they slumped to their heaviest Test defeat, a result that doubled up as New Zealand's largest win. "They were embarrassed in the dressing-room," said Zimbabwe's coach Alan Butcher, "and they should have been."

Their problems began when Brendan Taylor chose to bowl, perhaps deceived by a pre-match promise from McLean Park's curator, Phil Stoyanoff. Usually a producer of hard, true surfaces of the kind that break bowlers' hearts and gladden batsmen's, Stoyanoff suggested it would be different this time, and gave the pitch an extra watering before it was covered on the eve of the Test. But any local cricketer might have guessed what lay in wait: all it needed was two or three hours of sunshine the next morning, and the batsmen would be smiling once more.

So it proved, as Zimbabwe's seamers bowled a full length for an hour in search of imaginary help, and McCullum and Guptill happily gathered 68 riskless runs. By the time Guptill was caught behind shortly after lunch off Shingi Masakadza - the younger brother of opener Hamilton, and one of two Zimbabwean debutants, along with top-order batsman Forster Mutizwa - New Zealand had 124 on the board, and the game was already feeling beyond Zimbabwe's reach. And after McCullum departed for 83, Ross Taylor rattled along to his sixth Test hundred, against some undemanding bowling: leg-spinner Cremer struggled to settle, one over costing 17.

Rain limited the second day to 15.2 overs, during which Taylor retired with a strained calf muscle that would keep him out of the one-day matches. But once Watling - asked to keep wicket for the first time in Tests - had completed his maiden century on the third morning, New Zealand declared at 495, to allow their bowlers 15 overs at Zimbabwe before lunch. The tourists reached the interval a shell-shocked 20 for five; little more than an hour afterwards they were all out for 51, their lowest total in Tests and the lowest by any team against New Zealand. Only Waller managed double figures.

Armed with a lead of 444, their largest in Tests, stand-in captain McCullum enforced the follow-on. And when Zimbabwe collapsed to 12 for five second time round, most of Napier was hoping they would fail to get past 26, Test cricket's nadir, set 57 years previously by New Zealand. Zimbabwe avoided that ignominy, although their loss of the first five wickets in each innings for a combined total of 31 runs was easily a Test record, beating 45 (scores of 28 for five and 17 for five) by West Indies against Australia at Melbourne in 2000-01.

Regis Chakabva, in just his second Test, fought a lone hand with a half-century, only for the 37-year-old Martin - operating with a smoother run-up that improved his accuracy - to wrap up the innings with two wickets in two balls; his figures of six for 26 were his best in first-class cricket. It was only the third time any Test team had been bowled out twice in a day, following India against England at Old Trafford in July 1952, and Zimbabwe themselves against New Zealand at Harare in August 2005.

If Zimbabwe were dismal, New Zealand were ruthless, letting rip with an aggressive four-man pace attack, and catching brilliantly behind the wicket. At times, they posted two gullies and four slips: of the 13 catches taken in the cordon, five were held at third slip by Brownlie. Remarkably, it was New Zealand's first victory at Napier in all ten Tests there.

Close of play: first day, New Zealand 331-5 (Taylor 111, Watling 15); second day, New Zealand 392-5 (Watling 52, Bracewell 11).