Any optimism I had that the BLACKCAPS would start off this Australian tour well and send some sort of message to the Aussies, was always accompanied by caution. That caution was based on the idea that Australia wouldn't be easily dismissed nor would they offer up too many freebies with the ball. 

Unfortunately the first day of the Gabba Test saw Australia put in a dominant performance with the bat ... combined with a reasonably poor showing from the kiwis. David Warner smoked 163 in less than a day while Usman Khawaja hit his first century, which doubled as a comeback century with the lefty trying to establish himself in this new Australian side.

There was some hope that the BLACKCAPS would be able to exploit the new boys in this Australian side, yet Khawaja hit that century and Joe Burns scored 71 runs alongside Warner. 

From an Aussie perspective, this was a typically Australian batting performance. Runs were scored at greater than four runs an over, which is really fast and was a signature of the great Australian team that we grew up watching. Today was a quality day's cricket for Australia, exactly how they would have wanted to start with all of their top-four batsmen scoring some runs.

Day one showed the flaws or limitations of this bowling attack and presented Brendon McCullum with a catch-22 situation. McCullum was his crafty/aggressive self switching up field positions often (borderline too often) which served as a ploy to take wickets, but ignored the defensive aspect of bowling/fielding. You've got to be able to contain batsmen, limit the runs and play the patience game which means setting slightly less crazy fields.

McCullum wasn't really afforded that luxury however as the bowlers simply weren't good enough. Tim Southee bowled some good spells and was the pick of the bowlers, with the lowest 'runs an over' and subsequently he was the only bowler to concede less than four runs an over.

It's hard to try contain batsmen when your bowlers can't bowl six dot balls.

This was especially the case with Mark Craig who bowled 20 overs and could only manage two maidens. We've seen this before from Craig, in England where he served up rather average off-spin which is easy for any batsmen to handle, let alone Aussies on a Gabba wicket. Craig did manage to bounce back in England, so there's hope but Australia certainly sent a message to Craig and McCullum.

There's a big ol' worry that the likes of Doug Bracewell, Jimmy Neesham and Craig could face the wrath of the Aussies.

Day two will be all about early wickets. The new ball didn't result in any wickets this evening so it's hard to see Khawaja and Steve Smith - who looks in great touch - struggling tomorrow. 

No early wickets and Australia could romp to 600 and then bowl a few annoying overs at Guppy and Latham.