The first Test against New Zealand may have been a largely depressing experience for Zimbabwe, but it was also helpful in the perspective that it offered.

Because while it can be difficult to judge a side’s value or trajectory when you’re trying to compare their performances against different opposition in different venues, here we had the opportunity to compare apples with apples.

Nearly five years ago, Zimbabwe met New Zealand at the same venue and very nearly beat them. Now they were only spared total humiliation by a superb innings from Sean Williams, and still lost by an innings and 117 runs. The 2011 game was one of the best Test matches that I’ve witnessed live. This was one of the worst that I’ve sat through on TV.

The discrepancy offered an opportunity to reflect on everything that has happened over the past five years, and provide some answers on how Zimbabwe got here.

It reminded us that over the past five years: Zimbabwe as a country has returned from the relative stability of 2011 to something approaching ‘rock bottom’; domestic cricket has gone from a functional setup with overseas pros to a poor one that provides very little cricket; we’ve lost our best batsman and our best bowler to County cricket; the national team no longer has the stability of the Alan Butcher technical team, and is instead being run by a novice coach with no qualifications supported only by a batting coach who works part time; selection has become even more haphazard, with chief selector Tatenda Taibu barely present.

In short, a system that was holding its own in 2011 has slowly disintegrated and now broken down into total chaos.

To my mind, there are two possible ways in which the future might play out.

The first is what Dav Whatmore predicted last week, which is for Zimbabwe to go the way of Kenya, following it into financial oblivion. More players would leave, fixtures would become even harder to come by and the rest of the cricket world would give up on us entirely. Whatmore is not the only person to make this prediction recently – several other well-informed commentators (who don’t have an axe to grind with ZC) have done so in private.

The other option is to accept our place in the world and ride the waves of change that are rolling through world cricket. If we do, the long-term future could look quite bright.

The ICC have before them a range of proposals that I believe could be hugely beneficial to Zimbabwe. The idea as it stands is to split Test cricket into two tiers, form a new ODI league made up of the top 13 teams, and create a common pool for TV rights money.

Last week ZC chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani told me about the issues that he and the board have with the proposal. “Our view as Zimbabwe Cricket, and I believe it’s the view of any other weaker nation who is trying to improve their game, is that by not exposing our team to good opposition we are not going to improve,” he said. “Whatever restructuring of international cricket is done must be aimed at ensuring that it improves cricket and our belief is that you can only improve when you play against the best.”

There is no doubt that having a two-tier Test system will be harsh on the countries who narrowly miss out on the top tier, and for that reason Bangladesh deserve some sympathy. They’ve recently shown admirable improvement, and going back to only playing weaker sides would be detrimental – although only in the short term, since the system would have promotion and relegation.

But since that New Zealand Test in 2011, Zimbabwe have played just 12 Tests, five of which were against Bangladesh. So that’s seven Tests against supposed top-tier teams in five years.

The innings defeat to New Zealand proved that that isn’t working – you can’t play intermittent Test cricket and expect to improve, regardless of who it’s against.

Zimbabwe would undoubtedly benefit more from playing eight Tests against relative equals every two years (as the ICC proposal for Division Two has it) than holding on for seven Tests against the top teams every five. It’s also worth noting that, unless Zimbabwe pull out of their current nose-dive, they would be lucky to get another seven over the next five years.

Furthermore, if the ODI league went ahead then the national team would still have the chance to play against the top teams in the world on a regular basis and learn from the experience. And fans in Zimbabwe would have a much better chance of seeing the world’s top players in the flesh than they do right now.

Finally, given that Zimbabwe’s games have not even featured on SuperSport of late, denying many Zimbabweans both in Zim and South Africa the opportunity to watch the team, a new broadcast arrangement would also be a good thing since it would see broadcasters essentially buying a package for all international cricket. ZC would have guaranteed income, and supporters would be guaranteed to see the games on TV (which is clearly not the case with ZTV, even when they have the rights).

So rather than grandstanding, ZC should be focusing their attention on how to keep Zimbabwe cricket afloat until 2019, when the changes would come into effect. Because the way things are going at the moment, that feels a long, long way away.