Australia are touring in New Zealand and after one-sided T20Is that Aussies won easily, the Test battle has begun on 29th February. Both the teams have had their top players retiring before taking the ground at Wellington. Post David Warner’s retirement, Steve Smith has decided to open the innings with Usman Khawaja to give a youngster chance to thrive in the middle order.
That move has helped Australia to end up scoring decent on a bowling friendly green pitch on the first day of First Test at Wellington. New Zealand have won the toss and elected to field first. Even though Neil Wagner retired, NZ team has asked him to join for National Anthem on the ground before the match. On a green pitch, swing bowlers of NZ proved to be more than handful for Aussie batters.
Steven Smith scored 31 runs from 71 balls and Usman Khawaja took 118 balls for his 33. Well, Marnus Labuschagne(1), Travis Head(1) could not really resist against NZ bowlers. Cameron Green along with Mitchell Marsh(40) counter-attacked to bail themselves out of trouble. But that did not last very long even though it yielded 67 valuable runs.
Green ran out of partners as Alex Carey(10), Mitchell Starc(9), Pat Cummins(16) and Nathan Lyon(5) could not extend their stay at the crease. Towards the closing moments of the play on Day 1, Cameron Green completed his century from 154 balls. Due to his 103 not out, Australia managed to score 279/9 from 85 overs on Day 1.
Matt Henry troubled Aussie batters the most and took 4/43 in his 20 overs. William O’Rourke(2/59) and Scott Kuggeleijn(2/56) with Rachin Ravindra(1/19) came good in bowling for New Zealand. As Australia has come out with full strength in bowling department it would be interesting to see how NZ batters will play on this pitch.
Mohan Krishna Indraganti’s next to be produced by Sammohanam producer!