But former New Zealand coach Warren Lees still thinks the Black Caps can reach the World Cup semifinals in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh next year despite a miserable showing of late.
"There will need to be a hell of a shake-up for a start," he said.
"A real Grizz Wyllie team talk - that's what they need. After that they need to go out and prove, mainly to themselves, but also to a lot of people, that they're still the players everyone expected them to be.
"But we can still make the semifinal. It is a big call right now with the way we are going. And we need all our best players to perform. But we can do it."
While Lees is an optimist, he is not blindly so. The Black Caps' woeful 4-0 drubbing by Bangladesh was far from encouraging.
Some of the more experienced players let themselves down with performances well below what is expected from them, and looked like they were trying to hit themselves back into form, he said.
"There didn't seem to be a battle plan for batting. When your team is average, and we are decidedly below average at the moment, you need everything to be in your favour.
"You need conditions in your favour, you need the umpiring decisions to go way and you have to pull together, otherwise you're never going to win."
Lees was at the helm during 1992 when the New Zealand team swept into the semifinals of the World Cup on home soil, winning seven of its eight pool games.
Unfortunately, the home side came unstuck in the semifinal against Pakistan thanks to an unfortunate injury to captain Martin Crowe, which prevented him from fielding, and a very special innings from Inzamam-ul-Haq.
But for four glorious weeks New Zealand was on top of the cricket world and the country swung in behind the team.
"It was pretty emotional because the country had never been behind the team like that and to get so close, only to have it taken away at the last moment was, well ..."
Asked how many of the current crop would make the 1992 squad, Lees could come up with only two names.
"You couldn't deny Brendon McCullum a place, but Ross Taylor - who would you put out? I don't think he would have put out the likes of Andrew Jones or Ken Rutherford.
"Daniel Vettori would have to get in but I don't think any of the medium-pacers would get in. Perhaps someone might have pushed Murphy Su'a out of the squad. But he never played a game."
While the Black Caps would kill for a top five featuring John Wright, Crowe, Mark Greatbatch, Jones and Rutherford, Lees said the players went into the tournament in awe of some of the sides they came up against. That is how the experiment to open the bowling with Dipak Patel was hatched.
"If we lined up our team one to 11 against the best teams in the world we weren't rating very highly at all. On paper, against the likes of Australia, we were going to come second.
"It was probably a risk but it was calculated and wasn't anything new. County teams had done that sort of thing. The good thing was the whole team believed in it."
New Zealand's shock win against Australia in the opening match set the tone for the tournament. Lees' team won seventh consecutive games before stumbling against Pakistan in its final round-robin game.
New Zealand batted superbly in the semifinal, scoring 262 for seven. Crowe top-scored with 91 and Rutherford made 50.
Cruelly, Crowe strained a muscle late in his innings and Wright took over the captaincy but seemed hesitant and unsure.
"Not having Crowe on the field took a lot away from the whole team. I'm not saying he was God but everyone in that team believed in him.
"He would have made a huge difference to the way we performed in the field. We started looking like a desperate side when they still had 100 runs to get. It was almost like a team of men became a team of boys."
2011 WORLD CUP
New Zealand's draw
• February 20: v Kenya, Chennai
• February 25: v Australia, Nagpur
• March 4: v Zimbabwe, Ahmedabad
• March 8: v Pakistan, Kandy
• March 13: v Canada, Mumbai
• March 18: v Sri Lanka, Mumbai
• March 23-26: Quarterfinals
• March 29 & 30: Semifinals
• April 2: Final
New Zealand's record
• 1975: Semifinalist
• 1979: Semifinalist
• 1983: Eliminated during pool play
• 1987: Eliminated during pool play
• 1992: Semifinalist
• 1996: Quarterfinalist
• 1999: Semifinalist
• 2003: Eliminated in super six
• 2007: Semifinalist
