Wagner bemoans lack of luck for New Zealand bowlers

Black Caps bowler Neil Wagner rued his side’s bad luck as Australia took the ascendancy on day two of the second cricket test at the MCG.

Australia batted their way into control of the test after compiling 467 in their first innings and reducing New Zealand to 44-2 at stumps, but Wagner felt his bowling unit were hard done by, noting the amount of edges that fell short of fielders.

“Sometimes you need a bit of luck and we didn’t really have that. There were a lot of edges that didn’t carry or went square of the wicket, and on other days when that goes to hand, you put pressure on them and it’s a different ball game — we might bowl them out for under 300,” said Wagner.

“Colin de Grandhomme beat the bat so many times, it’s a bit of luck which you need sometimes. We created pressure and created those periods for something to happen and it just kept going past the bat. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating, and you leak a couple of runs. I thought our plans were still pretty good.”

That lack of luck was prevalent on day one, when Marnus Labuschagne and Matthew Wade were fortunate to get through to 63 and 38 respectively, but Wagner thought they could have removed Steve Smith earlier in his eventual score of 85 as well.

“Even in the first couple of balls of his innings, there was a lot that just ballooned in the air and fell nowhere.”

When Wagner did finally remove Smith with a stunning short ball, Australia were slightly vulnerable at 284-5, with Tim Paine walking to the crease. However, Paine survived some early scares and went on to add 150 with Travis Head.

“The opportunities that came didn’t really go our way. Finally we created something and thought we might have a bit of a gap, and two guys came out and played really well.”

In the end, despite the tough luck, Wagner still recognised the Australian batsmen won the battle and deserved their dominant position.

“Full credit to the Australian batsmen, they’ve almost been a step ahead of us. They’ve played really well, showed a lot of patience and some clear plans, and they kept doing that throughout the whole innings.”