New Zealand beats England by 189 runs
Visitors bowled out for 110 on final day, New Zealand takes 1-0 series lead
Hamilton, New Zealand: Journeyman seamers Kyle Mills and Chris Martin shared seven wickets to support a bold declaration by Daniel Vettori, bowling New Zealand to a 189-run win over England in the first cricket Test Sunday.
Leading New Zealand in only his second series, Vettori showed an adventurous nature when he declared his team's first innings at 177 for nine to set England 300 to win the match from 81 overs at 3.7 runs per over on the last day.
Mills then took four for 16 from 13 overs and Martin 3-33, wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum claimed five catches, as New Zealand dismissed England for 110 to crystalize the advantages they had held from its first day Wednesday.
To purists, perhaps even to his predecessor Stephen Fleming who spent most of the last day at first slip, Vettori's declaration would have seemed a courageous, even risky one. The pitch at Seddon Park was dry, slow and offered little to either seam or spin bowlers and it seemed conceivable an England batting lineup including Paul Collingwood, Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen could score 300 in a day.
But Mills wrecked the England innings before lunch, taking four wickets to send the tourists to the first interval at 34-4, with no hope of winning the first match of a three-Test series and in a desperate battle for survival.
Mills removed Alastair Cook (13), Vaughan (9), Andrew Strauss (2) and Pietersen (6) to eliminate the cream of England's batting, then Martin took up the charge in the second session, dismissing Tim Ambrose (0), Ryan Sidebottom (0) and Matthew Hoggard (4) to press New Zealand's advantage.
"It was a pretty amazing effort right from word go today," Vettori said.
"We carried momentum with our batting and made a reasonable declaration, set them 300. The way the bowlers turned up, particularly Martin and Mills, was fantastic. I couldn't have asked more from them.
"We had real confidence today we could go out and win it and Kyle and Chris were fantastic. The wicket seems benign but the way Kyle stepped up and Chris later on was exceptional."
England largely paid the price Sunday for their laborious first innings when, replying to New Zealand's 470, they chose a rigidly conservative approach in an effort to move the game towards a draw.
The tourists batted 173 overs and almost 11 hours to make 348, conceding a 122-run lead on the first innings. They would have felt, with four sessions of the match remaining, they had excluded all possibility of a loss and, when Ryan Sidebottom captured a hat-trick Saturday, that they had the best chance of winning.
New Zealand went to stumps on day four at 147-8, 169 runs ahead and in a no-man's land in which neither side had a clear advantage, though England felt satisfied that they had saved the match.
Vettori realized quick runs could be decisive Sunday and took his overnight score briskly from 13 to 35, helped New Zealand from 147 to 177 then declared with a 299 run lead. In doing so he laid down the gauntlet to England to attempt to win.
Shame-faced by their first innings performance, England had no choice but to take up the challenge. They dashed to 19 from 3.3 overs in an apparent statement of intent, then lost Cook for 13 and went into freefall, surrendering their top order before lunch.
McCullum took catches to dismiss Cook, Strauss, Sidebottom, Matthew Hoggard and Monty Panesar. Vaughan and Pietersen fell lbw, Pietersen without offering a shot, Collingwood was bowled by Vettori and Ambrose lost his stumps to a straight ball from Martin.
Harmison fell to a catch by Fleming off Patel, Fleming's 170th catch in Tests.
"Full credit to Daniel and New Zealand. They put us under intense pressure from day one," Vaughan said. "Having said that, the batting from our side wasn't exceptional. New Zealand put us under intense pressure, bowled exceptionally as a group of bowlers and batted extremely well to get 470 in the first innings.
"Our catching was outstanding but our batting and bowling not up to scratch."
Earlier, Sidebottom became the fifth England bowler to capture 10 wickets in a Test in New Zealand when he completed a six-wicket second innings bag. Sidebottom took the only New Zealand wicket to fall on the fifth morning, Vettori for 35, to add figures of 6-49 from 17 overs to his first innings analysis of 4-90 from 34.3.
Previously, slow left armers Derek Underwood, Tony Lock and Phil Tuffnell achieved 10 wicket bags in Christchurch and medium pacer Tony Grieg performed the feat in Auckland.
The second Test starts at Wellington on Thursday.