‘It’s what you grow up dreaming of’ – Trent Boult

It was as close to being a perfect day for New Zealand as possible at Auckland’s Eden Park on Thursday, 22 March, with Trent Boult first leading a demolition job of England, and Kane Williamson then driving home the advantage with a wonderful 91*.

At close of play on the first day, New Zealand were 117 in front, having responded to England’s 58 all out with 175/3.

Williamson’s heroics came later. The day started with Boult and Tim Southee making the ball talk, hitting a beautiful fullish length and getting the ball to move both ways. Inside 12 overs, England were 18/6, and then 27/9 by the 16th. It was only Craig Overton’s adventurous 25-ball 33* that helped England get to 58 all out.

“We made a call a couple of hours before – we always thought there’d be something in the wicket. It didn’t do probably as much as we hoped, but enough,” said Mike Hesson, the New Zealand coach, after the day’s play. “Sometimes when it doesn’t do more, obviously they play and miss. Look, once they found their length, they were exceptional. Trent certainly deserved the plaudits he got and Tim did a great job as well.”

Speaking to mediapersons afterwards, a beaming Boult called it a dream day, on which he returned his career-best innings figures of 6/32. And between the two instances when he hit the stumps of a batsman – Joe Root and Ben Stokes – he picked the latter as his favourite.

“Don’t want to sit here and sound like I am a magician of any sort, but yeah, that one was probably better than the Joe Root one,” he said of the one that was delivered from wide of the crease and moved in so much that Stokes, trying to leave the ball, could only watch it clattering into the stumps.

“Clearly one of those days, one of those mornings … it’s what you grow up dreaming of, to one day run out there with a fern on your hat and perform like that.”

New Zealand have certainly started on the right note, especially because they didn’t lose wickets in the twilight, which has been a cause for concern with the pink ball. The run rate for the innings has been 2.53, but that’s not a worry for New Zealand.

“We know that it can be difficult against the new ball, and even if we are not going anywhere, if we are spending some time out there then we can hopefully get the rewards later on,” pointed out Hesson.

“We’ve obviously got a couple of sessions to bat. If we can do that then obviously we get ourselves a good lead and get ourselves into a good position.”

If New Zealand do end up batting those two sessions on the morrow, Alastair Cook and Mark Stoneman will have the tricky job of negotiating Boult and Southee, as well as Neil Wagner, in the late hours of the day.

“If we’re good enough to bat two sessions, then we get the benefit of that,” acknowledged Hesson, adding that batting long would be easier said than done. “You don’t win a Test match on day one, but a really good start.”