England suffered another humiliating defeat in New Zealand as the hosts cruised to a 10 wicket victory in a rain affected match in Hamilton.

The defeat, only the fourth time in England's one-day history that they have lost by a 10 wicket margin, represents a new low after they had capitulated in abject fashion in the opening match of the five match one-day series when a batting collapse gave the hosts a six wicket victory with 20 overs to spare in Wellington.

Put into bat, the tourists were on course for a competitive total when they reached 85 for two after 15 overs before rain halted play for over two hours and restricted the match to 36 overs a side.

But any momentum they had established was lost and England slumped to 158 all out with eight wickets falling for just 73 runs after the restart.

New Zealand's openers approached England's attack with something bordering contempt, taking just 18.1 overs to reach their target of 165 set by the Duckworth-Lewis method of calculation.

Brendon McCullum hit a brutal 80 from just 47 balls which included eight fours and five sixes, while fellow opener Jesse Ryder offered able support with his more sedate 79 from 62.

"It was very poor, very disappointing," said England captain Paul Collingwood, who admitted he was at a loss to explain a disastrous performance from England in virtually every aspect of the game after the rains had cleared.

"We had a good start and when that rain came it really took the stuffing out of us in some ways. I don't know why, I wish I could pinpoint it but from that moment on really it was a very poor performance.

"It's not the standards that we like to set ourselves, and certainly with the bat, we're not getting the totals on the board to defend and obviously we've got to put that right pretty soon.

"We've got three days before the next game and we've got to work hard to do that.

"What it comes down to now is what kind of characters we've got to bounce back from that kind of defeat.

"There's 11 very disappointed blokes in that dressing room."

It was a desperately inept display, which included three run-outs in England's innings for the second successive match while McCullum and Ryder were both dropped inside the first five overs of New Zealand's reply.

Those two misses - McCullum was dropped before he had scored by wicketkeeper Phil Mustard off Jimmy Anderson and Ryder missed on nine by Owais Shah at slip off Ryan Sidebottom - proved fatally costly as they set about dismantling England's wayward attack.

The pair raced to a half-century partnership in only 39 balls and brought up their century stand in 66. McCullum reached his own personal half-century off only 27 balls.

England's innings again foundered thanks to a combination of bad shots and poor communication while running between the wickets, with the collapse prompted by Michael Mason trapping Kevin Pietersen lbw just 15 balls after the restart.

The tourists had no time to digest the loss of Pietersen before they also lost Collingwood to a senseless run out after he pushed Mason past point and set off for a quick two only to be beaten back to his crease by Jacob Oram's throw from the deep.

Owais Shah fell in Mason's next over when a full-length delivery nipped back and clipped his off-stump, but the low point of England's innings came seven overs later after an awful mix-up between Essex pair Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara.

Cook had batted impressively to reach 53 off 69 balls, which included six fours, when he was called for a single when Bopara drove New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori straight to Ross Taylor at cover.

Cook set off for the run but soon gave up when he realised he was several yards short. Bopara, scratchy throughout his innings of 23, could only watch on helplessly as Graeme Swann edged Vettori behind attempting to cut in his next over.

Stuart Broad gave England renewed hope of reaching a competitive total by reversing Vettori for four and then pulling Kyle Mills to fine leg for another boundary but that hope was extinguished when Bopara's innings came to an end when he chipped a leg-side full toss straight to mid-wicket.

Sidebottom completed another hat-trick of England run-outs and England's innings concluded when Broad was caught at deep extra cover for a spirited 23 off 31 balls.

With New Zealand now 2-0 up with three matches left to play in the series England require a turnaround of epic proportions to save the series.

"It is a hard task, but it's do-able," said Collingwood. "The funny thing is with our game, if we play well we can play very well and you never know.