Oh, the irony of it. Drought conditions across New Zealand and yet for the second Test in a row a match severely affected by the weather. This time there was a warning – England's whole strategy has been predicated on the probability of rain on the last two days of the second Test – so it will not have come as a great surprise that the penultimate day was so disrupted that there was no play possible between lunch and 5.10pm at which point 22 overs were left to bowl. Six of these were sent down before another brisk shower homed in on the Basin Reserve and the players were forced from the field once more. Thereafter it teased and tantalised, the showers returning just as play was about to resume. Play was abandoned shortly before 6pm.
At the end of the day, it left England a little further from forcing the victory for which they had hoped, and New Zealand a little closer to salvaging the match to go to Auckland for the final Test on Friday with the series still to play for. If Cyclone Sandra, whose passage down the Tasman caused the rain, had made herself obvious some while back, there can be few prognosticators before the series who saw that situation arising.
New Zealand, 77 for one overnight, had advanced to 153 for two at lunch and within 58 of their first task of avoiding an innings defeat. A further 9 runs were chiselled out in the final session to leave the talented young right-hander Kane Williamson unbeaten on 55, an accomplished mature innings without blemish over the course of 174 deliveries, and Ross Taylor, out first ball in the first innings, still there and starting to look confident on 41, their unbroken third wicket partnership worth 81.
With the rain correctly forecast for the afternoon, England will have been hoping to get more out of the morning than they managed. The ball, 33 overs old, ought to have been relatively hard (although the Kookaburra does tend to go soft quickly and suddenly) and more might have been expected of the seamers. It had been a tough day previously, particularly for Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson with Steve Finn struggling to find rhythm. Anderson was said to be carrying a back niggle too, something born out by his general absence from warm-ups and on-field calisthenics. Both he and Broad looked a little jaded, lacking the spark of the previous day.
It was Anderson though who managed the singular breakthrough after 20 minutes play when Peter Fulton played flat-footedly at a ball outside off stump and edged at knee-height to Alastair Cook at first slip. It is extraordinary how a player as tall as Fulton fails to make use of his height.
Anderson soon gave way to Monty Panesar however. In the first innings, he had largely played a holding role for the seamers but more was going to be expected. He had taken the first wicket the previous evening, that of the left-hander Hamish Rutherford, by making use of the rough on that side of the pitch, but now he would be bowling almost exclusively at right-handers.
There was though some immediate turn for him even from around the wicket, and it really did look as if there was a chance for him to make an impact.
He upped his pace: a bowler, as he showed in India, who can still spin the ball at a speed that others cannot while maintaining his control. It is dangerous if the ball is biting for there is no chance for batsmen to use their feet.
Both Williamson and Taylor played him well though, although Williamson looked less certain when he opted to bowl over the wicket and into the rough. Only a rare few deliveries beat the bat however, leaving the clutch of close fielders craving their catches and getting none. With lunch approaching, Cook decided to give Joe Root's off spin a whirl and he duly obliged with a long hop which Williamson was able to dispatch to reach his half century.
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