Wagner in career best haul
Cricket: Neil Wagner’s career-best bowling figures finally fulfilled Kane Williamson’s plans for New Zealand to bat on the opening day of their test series with Zimbabwe after the coin toss and a record partnership conspired against the Black Caps’ new test captain.
Wagner’s tenacity and well-worn strategy of hostile pace bowling on the most amicable of surfaces was the point of difference during an absorbing and occasionally enthralling return of test cricket to the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo for the first time since 2011, though Donald Tiripano’s unbeaten 49 gave the host’s bittersweet satisfaction.
When Zimbabwe lost four wickets with the score on 72 in nine balls soon after lunch – Wagner snared three in one over – Williamson might have envisaged a first innings lead, or minimal deficit by stumps.
But a 85-run partnership for the ninth wicket – Zimbabwe’s best against New Zealand – between Tiripano and debutant Prince Masvaure consumed 41.4 overs and limited the Black Caps to 32-0 in reply to 164.
Martin Guptill resumes tonight on 14 alongside Tom Latham [16] after the pair negotiated 10 overs.
Tiripano was on the cusp of a deserved maiden test 50 but had to be content with the highest score by a Zimbabwean No 10 test batsman – he was stranded when Michael Chinouya was bowled by Wagner, who eclipsed the 6-106 he took in the Black Caps previous test in Christchurch against Australia in February.
Wagner was fairly subdued once he turned his third five-wicket haul into 6-41 from 20.5 overs, though he was more content at the close of play. ‘‘It was pretty tough work out there on an unresponsive wicket. We had to fight really hard, and graft really hard,’’ he said after superseding Dipak Patel’s 6-50 at Harare in 1992.