Australia v New Zealand: David Warner not anxious about turnaround

From captain to coach to selectors to administrators, capitulations on a couple of greentops dominated the Ashes autopsy.

Steve Smith, now carrying the burden of leading Australia in all three formats, is feeling the heat from a disappointed home media after his first series loss as skipper.

McCullum, 34, has matured with age and has saved his best performances for the Black Caps in the later stages of his career. The logical conclusion is this is sound local curation from the Wellington ground staff (and there’s nothing wrong with that).

If you are batting first you’ve just got to hang in there, try and get yourself a score that’s competitive [but] it’s not going to be 500 or 600.

“It was incredibly tough on Wags because he’s done such a great job for us”, New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum said.

“You have got to be nice and patient, have a good defence and then when you get loose balls you have got to climb into them”.

Earlier, McCullum and Martin Guptill had again got New Zealand off to a rollicking start, racing to 84 in 9.3 overs before the captain became the first of Marsh’s three wickets when he was dismissed for 47.

The Basin Reserve offers a typical New Zealand green wicket for the first Test, but David Warner expected that would matter less than the swing movement offered by the atmosphere to New Zealand strike bowlers Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Allan Border played 153 successive tests for Australia, though not all from his debut. “We’ve got to pick a team for five days”. “But we’ll just have to sum that up as the game goes on”.

Pace bowler Jackson Bird has been recalled by Australia for the first check towards New Zealand after James Pattinson was deemed not fairly prepared to rise up to the rigours of a full workload, captain Steve Smith stated on Thursday.

“The selectors aren’t 100 percent sure whether he (Pattinson) would get through this first Test match so that decision was made”, Smith said.

“I thought the boys played him really well back in Australia”, Smith said.

“I don’t think the ball will do much off the wicket”.

“I think Jackson Bird has been bowling extremely well”.

The cricketing master hopes to end his last few games for the Black Caps on a high against arch-rivals Australia, but he should be proud regardless of the result for his huge contribution to New Zealand cricket, and bringing life back into the sport.

However, the opener said the greenness of the deck doesn’t guarantee success with the ball.

“But with dropping Santner to damage and the stability of the workforce, we’ve to go in with a spinner”.

On the other side of the coin, if New Zealand win the series 1-0, then Australia will drop to third on 106 points, fraction of a point ahead of Pakistan, and fourth on 105 points if the home side win both Tests. Obviously New Zealand are a very good side in these conditions so we’re going to have to be at our best if we’re going to beat them.

Inevitably, all discussions return to McCullum’s farewell and will continue to do so.

As for team achievements, McCullum said the series win in the West Indies in 2014 rated highly while the obvious individual highlight was his triple century against India two years ago.