After thinking about it more, most of the poorest batting displays during the test series came from test specialists. Brownlie against spin, Fulton's leaves and Rutherford's compulsiveness through the offside are worrying.
KW and Taylor didn't set the world on fire and McCullum was awful, but now I mostly agree with Hurricane the format change isn't a major part of the story here.
Speaking of KW, I think being the New Zealand number three is arguably the hardest job in test cricket. Should it come as any surprise to us an inexperienced batsman isn't firing consistently?
Moving back to ODI cricket, while I find Ronchi playing for New Zealand squicky and I don't particularly rate his technique against the new ball, I think he should be persisted with until the end of the Champions Trophy. If we are going to experiment, two ODIs is too short a time to make any conclusions. After the tournament we will have a much better perspective on Ronchi's suitability to opening.
If Ronchi fails, we have the option to either bring in Latham as the opener/keeper and accept he might not immediately get comfortable, bring Watling into the middle order since the opening experiment failed with him as well (and bring in another opener), or McCullum moves higher to either five or opener (not ideal) and Ronchi bats at six. I suspect New Zealand will either bring in Watling to open or push McCullum to five, but I would either bring in Latham to open or put Watling at five (and make Latham open), depending on how Grant Elliott goes in the Champions Trophy.
