A Lesson in batting

Yesterday we saw batsmen struggle to play test cricket on a pitch that has some life in it.  Today, on a brown flat piece of tarmac the Australian batsmen showed how to do it.  Once they got in they made sure it counted.  When half of a top six scores five runs between them you would not expect a score in excess of 450.

Usman Khawaja just carried on from yesterday working all the batsmen around the ground.  Apart from fretting when on 99 he never looked particularly bothered.  When he started moving around the crease when facing Corey Anderson with the old ball he was showing us who was in charge here.

Given the events of last night, there was more than an element of knife twisting with every run Voges scored.  He never looked as settled as Khawaja, and was certainly nowhere near as elegant, but he went about his work efficiently.  It is not often someone bats throughout an entire day.

That average of over 100 is a touch flattering though.

Then there was Mitchell Marsh.  On one hand coming in to bat with Australia over 100 runs to the good in the first innings could have been set up perfectly for him; on the other hand he was facing the new ball.  It was an interesting visit to the crease.  An LBW review first ball before being dismissed off the next.

He was always going to be dismissed caught and bowled.

At 299/5 New Zealand was poised to make a fight back, especially considering this is a pretty long Australian tail.  But as we learned in Adelaide he is pretty useful with the bat.  By the time Siddle came in the New Zealand bowlers were tired, and they were not going to pass on the chance to rub some salt in the wounds.

As an aside it is interesting how all three players who took part in that Sheffield Shield game at Lincoln are having good test matches here.