New Zealand's go-slow this evening means the game can now head in a number of directions. Stephen Fleming said that the plan for tomorrow was to step on it and put England under pressure, but since the two not-out batsmen - Mark Richardson (29 runs off 88 balls) and Lou Vincent (30 off 100) - had trouble getting the ball off the chocolate-brown square, and Fleming himself tends to be one-paced, he is reliant on Nathan Astle to recapture something of his Christchurch magic, and on Craig McMillan to turn one of his starts into a rip-roaring finish. If New Zealand add 350-plus tomorrow, they have an outside chance, because Daniel Vettori has had great fun aiming for a hole outside the right-hander's leg stump and the occasional delivery is already going through the top. But if they disintegrate and concede a first-innings lead of anything more than 80, it will be England who could be pressing for victory on the final day.

The third possibility open to Fleming is to do a mini-Brisbane and declare behind, but only by about 40 runs. This would place the onus on England's batsmen to mould the rest of the game, and if they choose to shut up shop, as they attempted to do with disastrous consequences against Pakistan at Old Trafford in June, Vettori could be the matchwinner.

Whatever happens, England played with real character today under the circumstances. Their collapse of 5 for 29 in 10 overs was triggered by the dismissals of Mark Ramprakash and Hussain, who had only just learned of Ben Hollioake's death. And you can't blame the late-middle order if their minds were on more serious matters.

Ramprakash, though, might be concerned by the fact that he dragged a ball from outside off on to his stumps for the second innings in succession. He had already escaped with one chinese cut for four, and the way he throws his bat at 45 degrees at balls that are too close to him suggests that his desire to be more aggressive can be a little indiscriminate.

The bowling, though, was superbly disciplined. Ashley Giles found turn and bounce, Matthew Hoggard seam and a bit of swing, while Andy Caddick bowled nine overs for ten runs, which still doesn't do justice to the Hadlee-esque line he bowled outside off stump. And he would have had two wickets had Steve Dunne not missed Lou Vincent's big inside edge which was athletically held one-handed by Ramprakash, diving forward at short leg. Vincent was on 3 at the time, and was also lucky not to go on 7 when he appeared to nick a Matthew Hoggard inswinger on to his pad on the way through to James Foster.

In the course of making 42 runs in the series so far, Vincent has now been dropped twice, and reprieved by the umpires three times (apart from today's decisions, he was also plumb lbw to Hoggard at Christchurch). The man who roared like a lion on Test debut at Perth has turned into a bit of a rabbit.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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