Christchurch Test, Day 2
Thursday, March 14, 2002 A satisfactory day. We're pleased to have got New Zealand out for 147, but to be honest, we were pretty sloppy in the field and had we taken our chances we could have given ourselves an even bigger lead. Luckily the ball swung throughout, and Matthew Hoggard used the conditions brilliantly. He runs in for me all day, sends down long spells, and a haul of 7 for 63 is due reward for a hard winter's work. It's a coming of age for him - seven wickets is seven wickets in any circumstances, and he will do well to beat those figures in the rest of his career.

The secret of Hoggy's success was that he bowled full all day. After the India series, all our seamers were so mentally grooved not to bowl half-volleys that it was a real effort to adjust their length, but fortunately Hoggy has adapted quickly. Pitch it up to the likes of Tendulkar and Dravid, and you get murdered, but I said to the guys beforehand, just get it up to the bat - I don't care if you get driven.

We took a while to get going this morning. Daniel Vettori is a very difficult guy to bowl against - he's given us problems before - and Matt Horne at the other end has a good awareness of his off stump. We are going to have to rethink our gameplan in the next innings, make them play at the ball more often. I wasn't worried about our bowling attack though. We picked the side with the extra batter in mind, and frankly, on this type of wicket, if three seamers can't do the job then four seamers certainly won't. The match is only two days old, and Ashley Giles may yet have a role to play in the second innings.

Everybody always moans about Andrew Caddick, but I can never understand why people question him. Caddy is Caddy - he's done it before for me: at Durban in 1999, at Headingley against West Indies … I always back him, and again he came up with the goods. In fact, his three-wicket burst was the key moment of the innings. It broke New Zealand's backbone, and we should have cleaned them up shortly afterwards. I don't doubt that Caddy was feeling a bit of hometown pressure - I felt it myself when we played in Madras last month. We're in a good position, and that can sometimes be a bit stressful, but Caddy should be able to relax a bit now.

I do think that the pitch will get easier to bat on as the match progresses. Just how much easier remains to be seen, as there are lots of grooves on a length that may come into play. It won't ever be a belter, but a careful day's batting tomorrow and we will give ourselves a good chance. But we won't be taking anything for granted - usually you find that batting last is trickiest, but here it might actually be preferable.

Tomorrow is going to be the pivotal day of the match. It's a 10am start, so the pitch will have sweated under the covers and is likely to be pretty juicy, and if New Zealand get among us with three or four early wickets then they'll be right back in the game. It's all about being in the right frame of mind. Some guys will have to be positive, others will have to exercise greater judgement. There's a bit of weather forecast, and the grass on the pitch might do a bit for them, but at the same time the wet outfield will be to our advantage. We had that on our minds this morning - the last thing you want when you've got a nice new Kookaburra ball in your hand is to let it get wet and soft.

The ball is going to keep zipping around, and if we outcatch New Zealand we will win the series. Unfortunately had a bit of a sloppy stage in the field today, and we can't afford to let those chances go begging. We certainly can't blame the background or the light - as Graham Thorpe showed by taking a fantastic catch. We will just have to keep our concentration throughout.

Nasser Hussain was talking to Andrew Miller. His thoughts will appear on Wisden.com, other duties permitting, at the end of each day of the Test series.

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