Brendon McCullum said it was a definite bowl-first pitch. He wasn’t lying. Predictably Aussie won the toss and bowled, though to be fair to B-Mac he didn’t exactly lose it – he just flipped it and watched as Steve Smith called it right. So it goes.

Anyway, by the looks of Jackson Bird opening the bowling and Marty Guptill playing a few shots early on, I made the stupid claim that we oughta be staring down 350 with this Aussie bowling attack. That’s a pretty big score for the Basin, but I only offered one escape rope clause for myself and that was that if Josh Hazlewood took five-for then 200 might be tough.

Unfortunately Tom Latham fending one to the keeper outside off and Guptill copping a goodie gave Hazleplanks a couple quickies and while Prince Kane told Birdie where not to bowl with a few sumptuous drives, he got sloppy too once Peter Siddle came on. That damn guy, he has a smile that screams ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ but he sure can hit a line and length. Siddle was rolling through the maidens like Wilt Chamberlain on Viagra and kiwi wickets kept falling. Henry Nicholls only managed 8 on debut, while Brendon McCullum edged one onto his pad that looped up behind the wicket for a simple catch for 0. Stephen Fleming, Allan Border and Alastair Cook are among the esteemed cricketers that McCullum joins to have scored a duck in their 100th test match. So… yeah. That.

B.J. Watling’s job is mostly to stop middle-order collapses so credit to him. He and Corey Anderson chugged along for a while at a bit of a crawl but enough to get through to lunch. And then Watling went. And Bracewell. Mark Craig got lucky when a ball hit his stumps and the bails held tight and he would go on to top score with 41*, with Corey Anderson dismissed for 38 going for a heave off Nathan Lyon despite just putting him to the fence. Silly stuff, there was a lot of it from the Blackcaps. Still, a few late sixes from Trent Boult got us to 183 before he was caught by Usman Khawaja doing a Chris Harris on the boundary.

Hazlewood had 4/42, Siddle had 3/37 and Lyon 3/32. Marsh was economical but not too threatening and Bird was rubbish (in for the injured James Pattinson) and we were in a bit of bother in Wellington.

But then Southee picked up both openers, doing some good stuff with the new ball. Cool, yeah. We’re back in it. Well, until Smith was dropped by Craig in the slips and he and Khawaja had a little party in the middle, adding 126 runs for the third wicket before Craig made belated amends with the C&B of Smith, a sharp low take as well. More drama to come:

Last over of the day. It was barely scraped in amidst player dawdling and commentary ponderings on time-keeping. Doug Bracewell to Adam Voges and mate he goes right past him, Voges pulling the bat away in leaving and the little red missile whips back onto the top of off stump. Clean bowled. But it was a no-ball. Except that it wasn’t a no-ball, he hadn’t overstepped. Bloody ridiculous, given that they’re always checking for no-balls after a wicket is given but apparently there’s no recourse the other way, not that the bowler would really know. Don’t put it past Sky TV to have shown the wrong replay but dammit, that could’ve been a major breakthrough.

Yeah so the Aussies are 147/3 and trailing by only 36. That first session tomorrow will be massive, we can’t let this get beyond us because on a green-tinged wicket against a couple bowlers that proved how good they are in these conditions already, there’s bugger all chance of this one going all five days – meaning an Australian win becomes a big chance. Gotta be aggressive to get back into it, that’s no problem, hopefully we can take some damn chances as they come.

The worry is that the pitch dries up and gets easier to bat on after a day of sun today. Being Wellington a short shower is never out of the question but nothing likely to change the game is forecast. Anyway, it wasn’t the runs that were hard to find, there were 330 runs scored on day one and that was despite an over rate that if it were an old lady would’ve needed help to cross the street. It was the 13 wickets that got ya, batsmen playing without enough discipline (coming in from limited overs cricket) and attacking balls that should’ve been left. Nine of those 13 wickets were caught behind the wicket. The Neviller had four catches.

The no-ball thing, it was a factor all day as the Australians bowled five of them. That’s not unusual at the Basin with the wind blustering around, which can mess with the odd guy’s rhythm. Plus Bracewell has something of a history with overstepping – he’d already bowled one that innings. It’s so frustrating though, 147/4 looks a whole lot better and that’s a long tail with Siddle probably at eight. Then again, Dougie was there for us and despite Ian Smith’s best PR work in the comm box, there’s no real evidence other than a solid technique that he’s anything close to a test batsman. Top score of 47 in 41 innings at an average of a shade over 13, don’t you know. He’s a much better bowler, however, and doing what he can with them wicket-to-wicket whippers is gonna make him a major figure tomorrow morning. Even if he didn’t get the rewards, he caused Voges a couple hiccups.

Good on Mark Craig whose international career is hardly stable these days, he batted well and he bowled better than he has for a while. We didn’t see much of Anderson with the ball, he doesn’t fare to have a heavy workload given the low scores – expect the three main seamers to bowl plenty of overs. We need some quick freakin’ wickets. Come on, we can do this.​