A STALL behind Durham's main stand was selling tickets for the county's forthcoming Twenty20 campaign yesterday. It's just a shame that no-one had told England's batsmen the competition is yet to start.

A devastating collapse saw the home side capitulate to 101 all out - the sixth worst one-day international batting display in their history - and ensured a seven-wicket defeat to New Zealand that leaves them six points adrift at the bottom of the NatWest Series table.

A summer that began on a high with a Test whitewash of the Black Caps is in grave danger of ending in calamity unless England can find a way out of their current malaise.

Michael Vaughan has still never captained his side to one-day victory when they have batted first - a run that now extends to ten games - and the skipper cannot have suffered many more chastening days than this one-sided rout.

Hometown hero Stephen Harmison provided the only bright spot for a capacity Riverside crowd, recording one-day international best figures with both the bat and the ball in an otherwise wretched England display.

The Ashington Express finished unbeaten on 13 as England's batting failed to fire, just one run less than top-scorer Marcus Trescothick, and then posted figures of 3-38 with a fiery bowling display that brought a touch of the Caribbean to Chester-le-Street.

If this is to be Harmison's only outing at the Riverside this year, at least he showed his home support just how far he has come in the last 12 months.

There weren't any other England players who could say the same. The home innings was a disaster from start to finish as, for the second match in a row, they failed to set any kind of target.

Sunday's seven-wicket defeat to the West Indies had exposed the limitations of the middle order and, on a Riverside wicket that was testing but hardly traumatic, England's batsmen contrived to throw the game away inside the opening hour and a half.

They weren't helped by the inspirational form of New Zealand seamer James Franklin, but too many wickets were conceded cheaply and the concept of crease occupation seemed anathema to a set of players schooled in the slapdash world of one-day cricket.

Risk taking is all very well on the dust-tracks of Karachi or Bombay, but an overcast Tuesday at Chester-le-Street poses questions that cannot be answered by a flick of the wrist or a casual waft outside off stump.

And, while England's current Test team is starting to look like a cohesive unit, the one-day side still resembles a combination of bit-part players cobbled together in the hope of achieving the right mix.

That blend was lacking yesterday, with problems starting at the very top of the order.

The writing was on the wall by the end of the sixth over as with Marcus Trescothick and Vaughan back in the boundary, and the score on 30-2, the home side were on the way to a terminal collapse.

Opening with Trescothick and Vaughan might make England's attacking intentions clear but, once that duo depart, there seems to be no-one capable of guiding the rest of the innings to a successful conclusion.

Packing the side with batsman able to eke out a 20 here and a 30 there is all very well, but most one-day matches are won by an innings of substance and England currently suffer from having too many players unable to produce that.

Trescothick and Vaughan can but, after putting on 24 for the opening wicket, they departed in consecutive overs to strikingly similar dismissals.

Trescothick was clean bowled by Jacob Oram as he looked to drive through midwicket, while Vaughan saw his stumps scattered by Franklin just two balls after scoring his 1,000th one-day international run.

Vaughan was to be the first of five victims for Franklin, a straight-forward left-armer who used the vagaries of the Riverside pitch to record his best ever figures in the limited overs game.

The 23-year-old was playing for Lancashire League side Rishton when he was called into the Black Caps squad and, while England found his swing largely unplayable, his haul of 1-50 against Burnley earlier this year suggests he is hardly the world-beater he was made to look.

Geraint Jones had chopped Oram into his own stumps by the time Franklin struck again, ruining Paul Collingwood's first international innings at the Riverside by tempting him into an injudicious edge that offered wicketkeeper Gareth Hopkins the first of three routine catches.

The Durham all-rounder didn't need to chase a rare wide offering, but his choice of shot was not as rash as the attempted pull that saw Andrew Strauss top-edge a skier to Oram at long leg.

Ian Blackwell offered limited resistance before being trapped leg before on the crease, and Franklin completed his maiden five-wicket haul with the very next ball as Ashley Giles had no answer to a lifter that he edged through to Hopkins.

Darren Gough survived a vociferous lbw appeal off the hat-trick ball but, when he and former Yorkshire colleague Anthony McGrath fell in consecutive overs with the score at 78-9, England were staring down the barrel of their lowest ever one-day international score.

That had been the 86 that was made against Australia in 2001 but, in a rare moment of relief, tail-enders Harmison and James Anderson at least ensured England would avoid the ignominy of scoring lower than that.

The pair added 23 for the final wicket - both surpassing their previous one-day international bests - before off-spinner Daniel Vettori slipped one through Anderson's defences to end the home misery.

Stephen Fleming and Nathan Astle started New Zealand's reply at a sprint, but they were eventually checked by Harmison, who produced one of the liveliest spells of pace bowling seen in the North-East for some time.

Reaching speeds of over 95mph, the 25-year-old produced the kind of pace and bounce that no other bowler was able to generate.

He was unlucky not to dismiss Fleming with his second ball as the left-hander appeared to glove a catch to Jones, but made amends in his fifth over as the Kiwi skipper skied an uppercut to Gough at third man.

Astle was beaten for pace as he was given out leg before for 15, before Harmison produced a venomous delivery that Hamish Marshall could only fence to Giles at backward short leg.

On a different day, such a spirited spell would have brought tangible rewards.

But, with just 101 to defend, England were unable to make the most of Harmison's efforts. Instead, Scott Styris and Craig McMillan were left to guide the tourists home.

New Zealand were left with more than 32 overs to spare - England could not say the same about their blushes.