The WACA Test is in a delicate position after three days of play, following an impressive partnership from Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor that proved tough for Australia to crack.
New Zealand closed the second day with Williamson and Taylor at the crease on 2/140, but in a remarkable performance the pair were able to hold out for most of the third day and manufactured another 212 runs before Williamson finally fell, caught by Mitch Johnson.
It was another enormous display for Williamson who spent six and a half hours at the crease and notched 166 runs, but even more impressive was Taylor.
After poor performances at the Gabba, Taylor bounced back in a big way and at the end of Day 3 is on 235 not out having faced 308 balls and spent more than a day on the field.
Taylor’s 235 has broken the record books as the biggest individual score ever recorded by a New Zealander against Australia.
Australia were able to take another three wickets after Williamson fell, taking Brendon McCullum for 27, BJ Watling for a single and Doug Bracewell for 12.
Mark Craig, currently with seven runs to his name, will line up alongside Taylor when play resumes tomorrow.
It wasn’t a bumper day for any of the Australian bowlers as none took more than a single wicket, though Mitch Starc was able to put his name in the record books as well with a bowl of 160.4km/h.
All in all it was a great response from the Black Caps who were widely criticised after the first day of the Test but have bounced back to make it a very competitive affair.
At 6/510, there’s every chance they could go past Australia’s total of 559, which would be a little embarrassing for Australia after they chose to declare with a wicket still in hand.
It means the Test is wide open again – if New Zealand can restrict Australia to a small total when they go into bat next, they might even be able to win, which seemed nearly impossible two days ago.
Australia will want to build a significant lead when they go into bat before they risk declaring and trying to bowl the Black Caps out, but they’re not going to have a lot of time in which to do that at this rate.
How the pitch holds up will be the big question – will wickets start to fall faster as the match goes on? If they don’t, then a draw looks almost certain.
Andy
Guest
Two of your most recent articles have been negative about the waca pitch and a visiting captain. Almost all your articles are negative.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Wasn't referring to McMillan
Jerry
Guest
What are you basing the claim McMillan is 'ceaselessly negative' on? He doesn't seem a particularly negative type of person to me.
slane
Guest
What an embarrassing comment Ronan. Par for the course I suppose.
Darwin Stubbie
Guest
Thank goodness the Aussies have you to steam in an warp things up at every opportunity ... All he's doing is questioning the technology ... there's nothing wrong with that - esp when all the rest is so iffy ... the drs is happily accepted as being stupidly inaccurate - yet we're meant to blindly accept a speed gun as being 100% on the ball ... those speeds have always seemed as being nothing other than a broadcasters gimmick (and didn't C9 ramp it up yesterday) ... Starc was fast yesterday no question - in the past we didn't need a speed gun to confirm the greats were in the middle of a hostile spell - we were all intelligent enough to enjoy it for what is was - a classic encounter between bat and ball
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
In my experience, people who are ceaselessly negative, in real life or online, are reacting to how much they dislike their lives. Chin up Nick.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
The recorded speeds of Hazlewood, Johnson and all the Kiwi quicks in this Test have been pretty much identical to their Gabba speeds. Starc has been recorded at up to 156kmh before, and in the 153-155kmh zone many times, so it's not like an extra 4kmh is an impossible leap.
Nick
Guest
What don't you understand Ronan? He believed that the radar was off all day, said that several bolwers were clocked at unusual speeds including the slower bowlers. It wasn't a dig at Starc at all Probably a technical malfunction.
Nick
Guest
Yeah that's the point. When Aus scored big all the talk was of how bad the kiwi bolwers were. Not so here it seems
Nick
Guest
A few years back there was a huge descrepency between the speeds of aussie and NZ bolwers during the Chapple/Hadlee series in games played in NZ and aussie. In NZ both sides bolwers were 5-10 km faster on the gun. It was obviously wrong yet it was taken as gospel.
Stu
Guest
To be fair he looked no where near as quick as Brett Lee and Shoaib used to. Apart from the one chance Taylor gave (can't be hard on Marsh, no one was catching that) he looked comfortable against starc for the whole innings.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
Strange that NZ batting coach Craig McMillan would look to deride Starc's efforts in reaching 160kmh today, seems an unnecessarily negative thing to do. Starc was repeatedly around the 154/155kmh mark in that spell, speeds he has reached time and again in ODIs, so no reason not to believe the speed gun that he got one up to 160kmh. What can't be argued is that he was bowling so quick that he completely rattled McCullum and Taylor. The Aussie fielders cruelled him by dropping both those players in quick succession off his bowling in that spell.
JoM
Roar Rookie
It's not a popgun attack at all. No bowler on the planet is going to good on this garbage with an old ball.
Nick
Guest
Shouldn't there be some article here concerning the popgun nature of the Aussie attack? NZ have scored 500 + against the Aussies at home. NZ has. Not South Africa or England or India but the miserable, dissapointing and thoroughly underserving of a 3 test series New Zealanders. I'm not even on a wind up. NZ have looked underserving of a 3 test series.... What the hell happened?
Worlds Biggest
Guest
Terrific batting by Williamson and Taylor, this pitch has produced over a 1000 runs in 3 days play, what a batting paradise. It does beg the question, what happened to the old bouncy WACA pitch ?