New Zealand wasn't afraid of Zimbabwe batting line-up. But they know it very well that no one would care about any records which their players can make against Zimbabwe now. New Zealand is a classy team in cricket. Teams like Afghanistan, Bangladesh and West Indies would have taken the opportunity to make records here. I believe that the other team of SENA nations would have done the same here.
I am very upset with Zimbabwe's performance. I do not understand why they needed to host this test series. Did not they know their own ability? The team scored only 125 runs in the first innings and 117 runs in the second innings. Despite the pitch being batting friendly, the team batted so atrociously. Zimbabwe lost by a huge margin of an innings and 359 runs. If New zealand had not declared their innings , Zimbabwe would have lost by a bigger margin. This team should now host series against teams like Nepal and USA. They don't have the capability to perform well against top tier teams like New Zealand or South Africa.
I'm disappointed with New Zealand as well. They should have gone for a 1000 but they declared the innings too early. They could have played today and declared at the tea break but they went with ending this game as soon as possible. The best record though was by Matt Henry who took 16 wickets in the match which is an outstanding individual feat. As of zimbabwe, they clearly are not as good as associate nations like US, Netherlands, Scotland or Nepal at the moment. ICC should really reconsider to implement relegation and promotion to test nations otherwise test would be more and more unwatchable as it becomes one sided.