Fury no-show

Troubled heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury failed to turn up to his UK anti-doping hearing in London. Fury is desperately keen to return to the ring but first must clear his name and get his boxing licence back. Fury, 29, a former heavyweight champion, and his cousin and fellow heavyweight fighter Hughie, 23, tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone in February 2015. Media waited at the hearing location for six hours before leaving in frustration. Members of the tribunal were sent home after 3pm but UKAD would not say if the hearing officially started or not. Both Hughie and Tyson Fury have strongly denied the nandrolone charge. against England a couple of months ago. Bat long, get a couple of hundreds and show people what we can really do," Radford had said.

In reality? Brathwaite, the rock of their previous three innings in NZ, cut Trent Boult hard but aerially enough for opposing skipper Kane Williamson to catch at gully after adding just seven to his overnight score while their Great Young Hope was all at sea against the short-pitched bowling of Neil Wagner before falling for 23.

Radford had been asked if his batsmen needed to temper their natural aggression in the test arena, particularly given the match situation where they had two days available.

"Not at all. I think we’ve got a mix. You’ve seen Kraigg bat, he can bat all day, bat six or seven hours. Shai Hope also plays that way."

Er, yeah ...

"I think it’ll be play hour by hour and session by session, and break it down into manageable bits," Radford said the night before Brathwaite and Hope fell within the first hour.

"But also still be positive, you don’t just want to be batting to survive, you’ve still got to put bad balls away and still look positive at the crease and move positively. So go out there with an intent to score runs still, and you can be positive in defence, I think we’ve got to do that."

Roston Chase at least proved he had a good pair of ears, and something in between them.

"The middle order. Roston Chase has had a very good year, scored hundreds against Pakistan. It’s about doing it here isn’t it? It’s a different test wherever you go around the world," Radford had said.

"Obviously in Wellington they were very aggressive and short on a quick wicket. Here it’s a bit more swing, [Tim] Southee and [Trent] Boult bowled very well. It’s been a different test I think and it’s coping with that and coming up

with methods to play that."

Chase did his best to negate both as he got to 64 off 98 balls through mostly resolute defence and judicious shotmaking before blotting his copybook by hooking the merciless Wagner to Colin de Grandhomme at fine leg.

He got excellent support from debutant Raymon Riefer batting at No 8, with the left-hander showing why he has a first-class batting average of 25 and a desire to be a genuine international allrounder.

Radford said the technique to cope with swing was to "play late, know where you’re off-stump is, be positive, don’t get stuck on the crease."

But he acknowledged talk could be cheap.

"Simple things, but you can talk it, you’ve actually got to go out and deliver it, under pressure."

His charges simply couldn’t.