The England cricketers returned from New Zealand chastened. One can marvel at their bloody-mindedness after battling away for the draw in Auckland but one expected to admire their potency. They could not outclass New Zealand as anticipated. In fact the hosts held the better cards in two of the drawn Tests.

Admittedly their experience was not as chastening as that of the Australians in India. But the inability of the England side to polish off New Zealand, albeit on docile, chief-executive-friendly pitches, will give hope to the Australians. Maybe England are not quite as good as they and everybody else make out.

Do they have the right balance? This question nearly always refers to the bowling attack. Will England need a second spinner this summer? Do they have enough genuine swing bowlers? How was it that the unsung Trent Boult and Neil Wagner were more than a match for England's more exalted trio? Actually the preferred balance of the England bowling attack for 2013 is well known. Graeme Swann will return to join James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Steven Finn.

Balance in the batting line-up is discussed less often. In fact, assuming everyone is fit, it is possible to predict with some certainty who England's batsmen will be at the start of this summer's Tests. Expect Nick Compton and Joe Root to remain alongside the usual suspects. The two newcomers have staked their claims effectively and deserve to stay.

But does this leave England with the right balance? This line-up is not one to set pulses racing. Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Nick Compton and Joe Root are all of a similar mind-set. They are crease-occupiers and only occasionally bar-fillers. Their strike rates – Cook and Trott 47, Compton 35, Root 31 – indicate this, though in the case of the last two the figures are distorted by the fact that in their few games for England they have often been batting out for draws. Even so, this is clearly not the most charismatic of England batting line-ups. It certainly does not possess the pizzazz of the 2005 side.

These are not the ramblings of an old romantic, who craves quick-fire entertainment for its own sake but rather a pragmatic observation. Volume is more important than speed when assembling a batting unit but there are disadvantages in a batting side peopled primarily by accumulators rather than aggressors.

Clearly this leaves the bowlers less time to bowl the opposition out twice but there is another consequence that may be less obvious: a relatively passive line-up can give confidence to the opposition bowlers. This may even have been the case in New Zealand.

In every era there have been batsmen with the power to intimidate. For extreme examples, think Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Virender Sehwag and Kevin Pietersen. They frightened bowlers – Pietersen still does – because they had the nasty habit of hitting their good balls for four. As a result the bowlers bowled worse. Understandably their confidence would be dented as another of their better deliveries disappeared to the boundary.

Those who occupy the crease for hours on end may infuriate but they do not intimidate. Bowling at Geoffrey Boycott was hard work and the likelihood of dismissing him may have been slight but there was always one significant compensation. If the delivery was good, he would respect its merits. Provided one bowled well, control would be retained. This knowledge was a source of some consolation.

That comfort applies to anyone bowling at the majority of England's current batsmen – Pietersen and Matt Prior (both with strike rates of 62) play by different rules while Ian Bell (49) can go either way. Bowlers, marking their run-up against England, know that they will not be shredded at the start of the innings if their radar is working. This is a comforting thought, which is bound to enhance their confidence.

Ideally there would be one more aggressor in England's line-up. For the moment their best players are mainly accumulators; they tend to score more runs than their Australian counterparts but not so quickly. So if England are to prevail in the Tests this summer it may well take them well into fifth day to do so – unless Pietersen and Prior score a high proportion of the runs.