New Zealand ahead after rainy third day against Pakistan

A great performance from him, especially in the abscence of Trent Boult. Doug Bracewell has replaced the fast bowler. It is the variety in his attack that led Williamson to praise his bowling unit as the best attack in the world, and few can deny that claim with the way Boult, Wagner et al bowled. Then, in the next over, Colin de Grandhomme had Wahab Riaz lbw, his front pad going too far across the stumps and coming in the way of his bat’s downswing.

Pakistan’s reply got off to an very bad start as Southee picked up three wickets inside the first ten overs. The conditions in Hamilton could assist the seamers, and the road ahead does not look any easy. Fragile Pakistan batting was exposed as they failed to reach 200-run mark in both the innings.

Southee blasted through the top of the Pakistani batting order with a handsome off stump line, the ball doing just enough from the pitch to coax three edges that were held by players behind the wicket. We have to go for some runs, because on a wicket like this it’s very hard to stop the ball all the time because this kind of wicket seams and swings a bit.

“Spinners are just [used] to kill the time over here, to stop the runs. Before that you have to take it on”.

“That’s the challenge for us”.

The right-armer dismissed Sami Aslam, Azhar Ali and Younis Khan with some fine swing bowling to leave Pakistan 12 for three after less than nine overs.

“With them having a positive mindset they put the bad balls away and got off to a good start”.

He bowled Shafiq (23) then followed up with a short ball to Mohammad Rizwan, which Rizwan hooked to Matt Henry on the boundary for a golden duck on his Test debut. “I’m looking forward to this Test; I can’t say I’m looking forward to the operation”.

Jeet Raval was not out 35 with Ross Taylor on 29 when the rain came 15 minutes before the scheduled lunch adjournment.

Southee quickly wrapped up the final two wickets when they returned in the final session to give the 27-year-old figures of 6-80, his fifth five-wicket haul in tests.

Lack of opportunities meant de Grandhomme left Zimbabwe in search of greener pastures and arrived in New Zealand, where he started playing first-class cricket for Auckland. Note once again that the PTV Sports YouTube live stream will not be viewable to users accessing the internet outside of Pakistan.