Jade Stadium, Christchurch, is a nondescript ground in a drab corner of a beautiful city. With only a couple of thousand people dotted around the place all day, the scene was dominated by the vast new concrete stand which stands three-quarters finished, screaming out a message along the lines of "anything Melbourne can do, we can do at least half as well". Until the Barmy Army found some form after tea, the loudest noises came from the builders, drilling and clanging as they installed crush barriers which may be too high up ever to be required for Test cricket. After the demolition job of Chris Cairns's first five balls, it was a day for building down below too. Nasser Hussain put on his hard hat, stayed out there from the first over of the innings to the last, witnessed quite a lot of wreckage, and patiently constructed four modest but solid stands. Nass the builder, can he fix it? Yes he can.

It wasn't a vintage performance by any means. He played and missed a lot early on, his timing came and went, he was outscored by all his specialist partners, and he gave a simple chance on 52 - the sort of score he has been getting all winter. But he hung in there, and did what he had done in the field in India - kept his team in the game, without worrying about the niceties. He didn't run anybody out, he played some handsome drives, and he was unlucky with the umpiring - the ball he himself was given out to was a fast-bowler's offbreak which would barely have hit a fourth stump. Nasser has been saying that everything was there in his game except a big score, and that would come. Today it did, just when England needed it most.

In the process he restored his reputation as a batsman who is at his best on bowlers' pitches, a master of the art of staying on the line of off stump so the jaffas go past the outside edge. Michael Vaughan cracked this too until Cairns cunningly produced a full-length outswinger that wasn't doing too much. Mark Ramprakash sparkled enough to suggest that he and Hussain might build a really big partnership, until he got the worst of three bad decisions in the innings. James Foster played the purist's shot of the day, a perfectly crisp straight push for four off Cairns, but none of them hung around like their captain.

The day belonged collectively to New Zealand but individually to Nasser. He ended it by unveiling his second new opening pair of the match, getting the twilit breakthrough England needed, and setting eight catchers, including two forward short legs, for Daniel Vettori. The only man in the outfield was Andy Caddick, who needed to be on the boundary to deal with a heckler whose idea of fun was to yell "Caddick is a homo" at him. It's no mean feat to give Caddick an earful, but this punter, boorish, drunk and thoroughly unrepresentative of his city, managed it with ease.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

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