Christchurch, March 10: Tom Latham made a gritty half century to hold together a deteriorating innings as New Zealand replied to Sri Lanka’s first innings of 355 on Friday, the second day of the first Test.
At stumps New Zealand was 162/5, still 193 behind with two allrounders at the crease. Daryl Mitchell was 40 and had batted for more than two hours and Michael Bracewell was 9.
The Sri Lanka bowlers capitalised on a good effort by their batters to the put the tourists in a strong position at the end of the second day. The bowlers were able to do far more with the ball on Friday than the New Zealanders were able to do even on the first day and after winning the toss.
The ball seamed throughout the day and batting never was easy for the New Zealanders, who relied heavily on the innings of Latham and Mitchell.
“It was tricky pretty much the whole innings,” Latham said. “With the new ball it was probably a bit easier.
“I think once the ball got a bit older, the wicket probably hardened up a bit and probably got a bit quicker. The ball was seaming at a decent pace. They obviously bowl very well and didn’t give us a lot to hit whether that was off the front foot or the back foot.”
Sri Lanka was 305/6 after a good first day on which it responded to the challenge of batting first after losing the toss.
The tourists added 50 runs for their last four wickets, reasonable return as New Zealand took the second new ball five overs after the start of play.
The New Zealand new ball pair of Tim Southee and Matt Henry shared the last four wickets. Southee finished with 5/64, his 15th five-wicket total in Tests, and Henry took 4/80.
New Zealand came out to bat about 30 minutes before the lunch break and probably couldn’t have asked for better conditions. The pitch hadn’t shown much during the first innings and Hagley Park was bathed in bright sunshine, perfect seeing conditions.
But the Sri Lanka seamers found a much more testing length than the New Zealanders and brought the ball back sharply at both left and right handers – just short of a length the bounce was unpredictable. (AP)
