The Black Caps have wrapped up the One Day series against Bangladesh, and this time they've produced something a little more pleasing for New Zealand cricket fans.

It was by no means their best performance of recent years, but it's a marked improvement on their past two efforts against Bangladesh.

Things looked like they were going to get worse pretty quickly when Bangladesh had the Black Caps in trouble at 13/2, although Brendon McCullum's dismissal was a bit dubious - how anyone could be given out LBW that far down the pitch we'll never know.

The one saving grace for the Black Caps is that this time Jaime How and Ross Taylor, both of whom failed to show their true potential in the first two ODI's, put on a solid 125 run partnership to set up the Black Caps total of 249 - although considering they chose to bat first the total should really have been closer to 300.

Taylor went on to make 103, while How was dismissed for 73. Scott Styris and Daniel Flynn both failed to make an impact for the third straight game, which must be of some concern to the team - especially Styris, who hasn't really contributed anything with the bat for some time now.

Bangladesh were always going to struggle to chase down the total, and as time went on the run rate got bigger and bigger, which effectively took them out of the contest. They finished with 170/8 off the fifty overs, which on a batters pitch is a poor effort. We know they've had to readjust their side after losing a whole heap of players to the rebel league, but they've been playing long enough now to start producing more than just one-off wins. When you consider how much cricket they actually have been playing, they aren't getting a whole lot better.

It's always hard to read anything out of a tour like this one, but what we can take away from it is that the Black Caps still have a lot to do to become more consistent. Too often it's left to one or two batsmen to save the innings, rather than all the batsmen doing their job and scoring runs.

Our bowling lineup is coming on nicely, though, with Mills stepping into the role left by Shane Bond's departure from the Black Caps. Southee and Oram are backing up Mills at the other end (and, more importantly, picking up wickets along the way), while our spinners are doing a fantastic job - especially Jeetan Patel, who probably doesn't get as much game time as he should. Although with Vettori in the lineup we can understand why...

We'll take the 2-1 series win, but overall the level of cricket has been below average (with the exception of a few individuals). The final ODI was a chance for the Black Caps to build up some momentum for the Test series - put 300 on the board, bowl the Tigers out for 150, and head into the Tests at full steam. But the momentum really isn't there, despite the win. It's a concern that, other than two batsmen in the 3rd ODI and Oram in the first two, the lineup hasn't scored any significant runs. Heading into a Test series...well, they're all about runs. And batting time, too - which we also don't seem capable of at the moment.

(What's that, Daniel Flynn? You're on 3, you're struggling for runs, and you reverse-sweep? Righto.)

The Black Caps should deal to Bangladesh in the Test series, but we're not sure they will. They'll win - there's no doubt we can sustain good cricket longer than Bangladesh can - but we can't help feeling it will be less convincing than it perhaps should be.

So, only one thing left to do, lads - prove us wrong.