NZ haven’t run out of fight: Phillips
Glenn Phillips doesn’t usually need much encouragement to dream big and he was happy to go there after day two of the Black Caps’ first test against Australia.
The all-rounder’s counter-punching knock of 71 off 70 balls helped keep his side in the contest as they replied to Australia’s first-innings effort of 383 at the Basin Reserve in Wellington yesterday.
After being dismissed for 179, the Black Caps took two wickets before stumps yesterday – both of them falling to captain Tim Southee – to leave Australia 13-2, leading by 217.
New Zealand will need to continue taking wickets at that pace today if they are to haul themselves back even further to the contest, with Phillips saying the feeling in the dressing room was pretty positive, then later outlining the kind of target they would still fancy having a good crack at.
“If it flattens and it becomes nice to bat on and there's plenty of time left in the game, I wouldn't be able to exactly put a number on it, but I think we'd still have a good go at chasing 350 to 400, especially if it flattens out.”
That Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon extracted plenty of turn and bounce in taking four first-innings wickets – all of them after the Black Caps collapsed to 29-5 – suggests batting won’t be that easy.
Australian seamer Josh Hazlewood noted that the “bounce in particular brought a few unstuck” and felt there was “still plenty on offer, as we saw from our little stint there facing the Kiwis”.
Having gone wicketless in the first innings, just as he did in the second innings of his last test, the win over South Africa in Hamilton last month, Southee first got Steve Smith to play on, then had Marnus Labuschagne caught behind down the leg side.
Day two ended better for the Black Caps with the ball than it started. Having resumed with Australia 279-9, they took more than two hours to claim the final wicket, conceding a further 104 runs in the process.
Cameron Green finished not out on 174, having been joined by Hazlewood in a 116run partnership that set a new record for any 10th-wicket pair against New Zealand.
The old record of 114 was set by Australian bowlers Jason Gillespie and Glenn McGrath in Brisbane in 2004 and Hazlewood recalled memories of Gillespie “riding his bat like a horse” when he brought up his half-century.
When the Black Caps finally got to bat after tea, they were quickly on the back foot, and not helped by the calamitous run out of key man Kane Williamson, who collided with Will Young, then swerved around Mitchell Starc after setting off for a risky single following a push to mid-off.
Phillips chalked it up as a freak accident, while Hazlewood suggested the mid-pitch collision wasn’t a factor, noting fielder Labuschagne “has been outstanding the last couple of years.
“It would have been out even if they didn’t collide, to be honest.”
In response, Phillips could only say: “We’ll never know, I suppose. [Kane is] still pretty quick between the wickets. It could have been, it may not have been, we’ll never know.”
If the Black Caps need inspiration to continue to fight, they only need to look back to last year, where they conceded a 226-run deficit to England after both teams’ first innings were complete, then managed to win by one run.
That England enforced the follow on helped on that occasion, but a new twist this year is the threat of rain tomorrow and Monday – days four and five – which means Australia can’t plan to bat as long as possible.
"For us, it's about showing that fight that we have become known for,“Phillips said as he looked forward to day three.
“To be able to make sure that we're in the game the whole way through, to keep throwing our punches, picking and choosing our times.
“There's a lot of cricket left to play. Strange things have happened at the Basin. So who knows, maybe this will be another one of those.”