Auckland Test, Day 1
Saturday, March 30, 2002

That was a strange day. We'd have taken them being 150 for 5 at the start, but after you take four cheap wickets you're bound to be a little disappointed that they got that many. It was odd, really – I thought we didn't bowl that well at the start and did get wickets, and then bowled better later on and didn't.

It is a difficult ground to bowl on, what with the wind you usually get here. There was a howling gale at Matthew Hoggard's end for most of the time today, so it was very hard to bowl properly from there. But the bowlers stuck at it and I was happy with their rhythm later on.

Andy Caddick was the pick of our attack once again, and I'm glad he got to 200 Test wickets, which is a major milestone. It looked as if he would go into lunch one short today, but I didn't want him to enjoy his meal too much, so I got him to bowl the last over beforehand into the wind, which he wasn't very pleased about. Then he got a wicket with his third or fourth ball and began to think it was a great idea.

We have got another drop-in pitch for this Test, and it's an interesting one. It is flatter than the one we had for the first Test, but there is about the same amount of sideways movement, so it isn't that easy to bat on. Overall it's a better wicket than the first one.

I was going to bowl first if we won the toss - just because in general the pitches out here have been easier to bat on later on - so it was a bit of a surprise when I lost it again and we still ended up bowling. We had no hesitation in going in with the same team – there were no injury niggles and everyone is in good nick. It was probably the shortest selection meeting I've ever been in, actually.

Chris Harris played well today – he also got some runs against us early in the tour, for Canterbury in one of the warm-up matches. He had a little bit of luck, which I wasn't too happy about [a confident appeal for a bat-pad catch], but apart from that he stuck to it well.

We are going to have to get him out early tomorrow, and then Adams and Vettori can be dangerous customers with the bat too. We may have to be patient and wait for the new ball, which should zip around a lot more.

This is a quick-scoring ground – it's a bit like Edgbaston, there are some shortish boundaries at some angles, and the runs pile up quicker than you expect. So we have to keep it tight, and not bowl too many bad balls, which we did at times today.

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

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