Hamilton pitch likely to favour seam

“Doug’s probably been the best bowler, but he isn’t getting all the wickets”.

Black Caps bowling coach Dimitri Mascarenhas believes New Zealand got the selection mix right for their 122-run over Sri Lanka in the first cricket Test.

“Mark Craig comes back into calculations as well but Doug Bracewell, I thought he bowled absolutely brilliantly throughout the Test match and all through Australia as well and just hasn’t got the rewards at the moment”.

“The challenge for us for the next three matches over the summer is to keep putting that line in the sand further and further away”. I think it will be different from the Hamilton wickets before.

The blackcaps captain Brendon McCullum also praised Bracewell as he said that he was due to get wickets, while also drawing comparisons with Tom Latham, a promising batsman, who’s got decent starts, but hasn’t gone on quite often to convert them into big scores. “We’re playing on a Patumahoe clay, which is the first time we’ve played a test match on that clay here at Seddon Park”, Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Trent Boult has continued to be among the wickets despite being below his best.

Having put 431 on the board after being sent in to bat, New Zealand needed 117 overs to bowl Sri Lanka out for 294 in its first innings, and was in the 96th over of the tourists’ second innings before seamer Doug Bracewell took a caught and bowled from Suranga Lakmal to end the game. “We’ve seen that he has pushed it up to the high 130s”.

“Sometimes it’s about a little bit of confidence – confidence in his body to keep going and really feel that he can push those speeds up”, Mascarenhas said. Other than that he seems to be going really nicely.

Mascarenhas said New Zealand had not yet chosen their team, but with a green pitch on offer, the hosts may field a four-seamer attack again.

Against Sri Lanka at University Oval in Dunedin, with more favourable conditions they showed they could sustain their level of good play as they eye a return series against Steve Smith’s side next February.

“We knew we would get better and it’s one thing expecting yourselves to get better but it’s another thing actually doing it”. They’ve lost a couple of big players, but they ones coming in are getting opportunities and hopefully are going to be taking them.