Tea New Zealand 391 and 94 for 2 (Nicholls 39*, Ravindra 35*) lead England 291 (Gay 53, Fisher 50*, Henry 5-80) by 194 runs
Roared in by the crowd, Archer pushed the speed gun up to 91mph, hitting Nicholls on the body with his second ball and then beating an attempted forward defensive in the channel. He could not conjure a second breakthrough, but there was no respite when Josh Tongue replaced Archer after four overs from the Pavilion End, as his first ball drew a loose drive from Devon Conway that flew straight off the edge to second slip.
As in the first innings, Ravindra showed regular glimpses of his class, pulling Fisher crisply through midwicket to get off the mark. He could have been dismissed on 7, however, when stabbing at a full delivery from Tongue that took the outside edge, only for wicketkeeper James Rew to drop a flying one-handed effort low to his left.
In an eventful over, Ravindra clipped his next ball wide of mid-on for a boundary, rubbing salt in the wound, and was then lucky to survive a shooter that fizzed past his off stump.
Ravindra regained his poise with business-like clips to the fence off Baker and Tongue, the latter also driven down the ground past a tumbling Archer. Joe Root brought himself on to bowl in the 18th over and twice saw lbw appeals against Nicholls turned down – one sliding past leg, the other involving an inside edge. But Nicholls countered by jumping out to loft straight and then clip four more through the covers for back-to-back boundaries to bring up the fifty stand.
New Zealand had strengthened their grip on the Test by taking a lead of exactly 100 during the morning session, although it would have been more but for a redoubtable innings from Fisher, England’s No. 9, who helped put on 53 for the last wicket with Sonny Baker.
After being sub-par in all departments on day two, England returned looking to one of their three debutants to try and narrow the deficit, which stood at 169 overnight. Jordan Cox had played neatly in his maiden Test innings but would have to marshal the tail, with not much batting to come after Archer at No. 8.
However, he had only a single and clip for four to his overnight score when he tried to whip Henry through the leg side in the fourth over of the day and was snapped up by the diving Latham at short midwicket, and 235 for 6 swiftly became 238 for 9 as Henry wrapped up a five-wicket haul, surprisingly his first in 11 Test appearances against England.
Archer had struck Kyle Jamieson for a brace of fours but also fell to Henry’s nagging line of attack with the keeper stood up to the stumps, a waft in the channel smartly held by Tom Blundell going to his right. Tongue then tried and failed to clear mid-on – Nathan Smith plucking the ball in his right hand as he fell backwards, after dropping the initial overhead chance.
It should have been 242 all out when Fisher, batting alongside another debutant in Baker, called for a non-existent two to deep backward point. Blundell was unable to gather cleanly, though, with Fisher diving for his ground and Baker belatedly realising the need to scramble up the other end.
New Zealand were left to regret squandering that chance. Fisher started the counter by thumping Will O’Rourke’s first ball through the covers, while Baker got off the mark in Test cricket by edging Smith wide of the cordon for four. New Zealand did eventually deign to use the short-ball ploy that led to England short-circuiting on the second morning, with O’Rourke clanging Fisher on the helmet grille, but the Surrey seamer was not to be cowed on his home ground.
When Smith, switching ends to replaces O’Rourke, also went short he was swatted away confidently by Fisher, who then survived an under-edge off the bowling of Ravindra that Blundell couldn’t lay gloves on. Smith was picked off on the pull and then the drive as Fisher moved into the 40s and he cracked on against the second new ball, carving Henry down to deep third and then turning him through midwicket an over later to raise 50, celebrated with a look to the skies and a kiss of the bat.
Fisher did not get a chance to add to his score – only his third first-class half-century – as Jamieson finally ended Baker’s 36-ball resistance via an outside edge to second slip with the lunch interval looming.
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick
