BULAWAYO
\nNew Zealand captain Mitch Santner said a \u201cgreat collective performance\u201d enabled the Black Caps to beat Zimbabwe by nine wickets on the third day of the first Test here at the Queens Sports Club on Friday.
\nBut while the bowlers had excelled, he said the batting could have been better.
\nLed by fast bowler Matt Henry, New Zealand bowled out Zimbabwe for 149 and 165 and needed only eight runs to win after taking a first innings lead of 158.
\nHenry was named player-of-the-match, taking nine wickets for 90 runs across the two innings.
\n\u201cThere was more in it [the pitch] than we thought. We held our lengths and lines,\u201d said Santner, who captained New Zealand for the first time in a Test in the absence of Tom Latham with a shoulder injury.
\nIt was New Zealand\u2019s first Test match of the year and Henry\u2019s performance came immediately after a triangular T20 series won by New Zealand in Harare, where Henry was player of the tournament.
\n\u201cWith the chop and change in formats, you\u2019ve got to trust the work you\u2019ve put in,\u201d said Henry. \u201cWhen you have assistance [from conditions], it was great we were able to exploit it.\u201d
\nNew Zealand were bowled out for 307 in their first innings, with the only major contributions coming from Devon Conway (88) and Daryl Mitchell (80).
\n\u201cWe could have batted a bit better,\u201d said Santner. \u201cWe had good intent. We talked about getting partnerships together but didn\u2019t have many significant ones.\u201d
\nSantner said there was concern about the condition of seamer Nathan Smith, who took three for 20 in the first innings of just his third Test but could not take the field in the second innings because of an abdominal injury.
\n\u201cI feel for him. He bowled so well in the first innings but it doesn\u2019t look good for him,\u201d said Santner.
\nZimbabwe captain Craig Ervine said his batsmen had shown more application than they did in two recent Tests against South Africa in Bulawayo.
\n\u201cThere was a fair bit in the wicket but the guys tried to grind it out,\u201d he said.
\nErvine said a key passage of play was on the first evening when Conway and Will Young put on 92 without loss for the first wicket despite Zimbabwe bowling well.
\n\u201cI haven\u2019t seen as much lateral movement as there was here for a while. We could have easily picked up two or three [wickets].\u201d
\nSantner took four for 27 in the second innings, while Henry and Will O\u2019Rourke picked up three wickets each Veteran left-handers Sean Williams (49) and Craig Ervine (22) shared a fifth wicket stand of 57, while wicket-keeper Tafadzwa Tsiga (27) and fast bowler Blessing Muzarabani (19) put on 36 for the ninth wicket to make New Zealand bat again.
\nNew Zealand were hampered by the absence of Smith and O\u2019Rourke, who was feeling stiffness after his morning spell. The teams meet again in the second Test at the same venue from Thursday.<\/p>\n
SCOREBOARD
\nZIMBABWE (1st Innings) 149 (C. Ervine 39; M. Henry 6-39)
\nNEW ZEALAND (1st Innings) 307 (D. Conway 88, D. Mitchell 80; Muzarabani 3-73)
\nZIMBABWE (2nd Innings, overnight 31-2):
\nB. Bennett c Blundell b O\u2019Rourke 18
\nB. Curran c O\u2019Rourke b Henry 11
\nN. Welch c Blundell b O\u2019Rourke 4
\nV. Masekesa c Ravindra b O\u2019Rourke 2
\nS. Williams c Blundell b Santner 49
\nC. Ervine c Blundell b Henry 22
\nS. Raza c Ravindra b Henry 5
\nT. Tsiga c Conway b Santner 27
\nN. Nyamhuri b Santner 1
\nB. Muzarabani c (sub) b Santner 19
\nT. Chivanga not out 0
\nEXTRAS (B-6, LB-1) 7
\nTOTAL (all out, 67.1 overs) 165
\nFALL OF WICKETS: 1-25 (Curran), 2-29 (Bennett), 3-34 (Welch), 4-53 (Masekesa), 5-110 (Williams), 6-110 (Ervine), 7-119 (Raza), 8-126 (Nyamhuri), 9-162 (Muzarabani)
\nBOWLING: Henry 21-5-51-3, O\u2019Rourke 10-4-28-3, Bracewell 15-2-42-0, Santner 17.1-6-27-4, Mitchell 4-1-10-0
\nNEW ZEALAND (2nd Innings):
\nD. Conway b Nyamhuri 4
\nW. Young not out 0
\nH. Nicholls not out 4
\nTOTAL (for one wicket, 2.2 overs) 8
\nFALL OF WICKET: 1-4 (Conway)
\nDID NOT BAT: R. Ravindra, D. Mitchell, T. Blundell, M. Bracewell, M. Santner, N. Smith, M. Henry, W. O\u2019Rourke
\nBOWLING: Nyamhuri 1.2-0-8-1, Williams 1-1-0-0
\nRESULT: New Zealand won by nine wickets.
\nPLAYER-OF-THE-MATCH: Matt Henry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BULAWAYO New Zealand captain Mitch Santner said a \u201cgreat collective performance\u201d enabled the Black Caps to beat Zimbabwe by nine wickets on the third day of the first Test here at the Queens Sports Club on Friday. But while the bowlers had excelled, he said the batting could have been better. Led by fast bowler …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":84774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84775,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84773\/revisions\/84775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}