Travis Head‘s second Test ton and Tim Paine’s highest Test score as captain put Australia in a position of strength in the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand at the MCG. Having finished with a sizeable score of 467, the hosts picked up early wickets to leave New Zealand in trouble at 44 for 2 at Stumps on Day 2.
Only 27 runs came in the 14 overs bowled in the first hour on Day 2 as Smith and Head went about it in a watchful manner. Barring a couple of threes and the first four which came in the 12th over of the day, it was a patient partnership that kept the New Zealand bowlers at bay. But soon after the drinks break, life was injected into the session when Wagner bowled a well-directed short delivery to Smith, who fended at it awkwardly off the handle to gully where Henry Nicholls held on to a reverse one-handed catch jumping up.
New Zealand, though, had to wait for a long while for their next wicket as Paine and Head got together and put on a 150-run stand, with their partnership lasting until the start of the third session. Soon after arriving at the crease, the wicketkeeper-batsman didn’t shy from playing his shots, while Head too upped his scoring rate. Paine was peppered with short deliveries from Wagner but he handled them effectively while Head, at the other end, was solid with his approach.
Pulls, cuts and drives – there were plenty of those as Paine and Head dealt in regular boundaries to power Australia forward, with the captain bringing up his first fifty-plus score in seven innings. Be it driving through cover, playing the cut and pull shots or sweeping the spinner, Paine oozed confidence. Head focused more on blunting the New Zealand bowlers but he also struck boundaries, with an upper cut off Wagner raising the first-century stand of the innings.
Paine had outscored Head on boundary count before the left-hander caught up with his skipper. Head, though, slowed down after he entered the 90s as he ended the second session two short of the century mark, having faced 35 deliveries to move from 90 to 98. The partnership, however, came to an end at the start of the final session as Paine was trapped in front by Wagner, who came around the wicket – with New Zealand using the review to reverse the onfield decision.
Mitchell Starc fell cheaply but a celebration followed soon after as Head got to his second Test ton and powered Australia past 450 with two successive boundaries off Wagner. Head’s innings, however, came to an end as he sliced a catch to cover to give Wagner his fourth wicket, with Australia’s innings ending shortly after that.
New Zealand’s reply started with Pat Cummins troubling Tom Latham early, right from his first delivery which struck the left-handed opener on his thumb and fell short of the ‘keeper. Tom Blundell, at the other end, started his maiden stint as an opener quite confidently as he square-drove and flicked Starc deliveries which were close to the 150kph mark. However, he fell to a full delivery from Cummins, getting an outside edge after being lured into a drive.
Cummins continued to pose questions to Latham, coming around the wicket and beating the inside edge once and also bowled three maidens to the opener. Williamson, meanwhile, was collecting runs through the third-man region and even ran four after driving a James Pattinson delivery through cover. But New Zealand suffered a big setback as Pattinson got the New Zealand captain with a short delivery, with Paine holding on to the top edge. Ross Taylor, who managed to reverse an on-field leg-before decision awarded in favor of Pattinson, was unbeaten at Stumps along with Latham.
Brief scores: Australia 467 (Travis Head 114, Steve Smith 85, Tim Paine 79; Neil Wagner 4-83, Tim Southee 3-103) lead New Zealand 44/2 (Tom Blundell 15; Pat Cummins 1-8, James Pattinson 1-9) by 423 runs.
