Tea West Indies 213 and 314 for 5 (Bravo 146*, Ramdin 4*) trail New Zealand 609 for 9 dec by 82 runs
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
A stubborn fifth-wicket stand between Darren Bravo and Narsingh Deonarine tested New Zealand's patience for more than three hours and it took a peach of a delivery from Corey Anderson to revive the home team's flagging spirits in Dunedin. The partnership between the two batsmen ate away 122 runs from New Zealand's lead which now stands at 82. With Bravo continuing to stay solid, West Indies slowly inched towards making New Zealand bat again.
New Zealand had patiently waited for the new ball towards the second half of the first session, but it didn't bring the pot of luck they were after. Barring a few deliveries from Tim Southee, there wasn't much zip or movement on a pitch that had flattened out and, when the opportunities came, the home side was not able to convert them.
Deonarine was the beneficiary twice. First, he offered a difficult chance to Southee after driving uppishly back towards him. The bowler, falling over to the left in his follow-through, couldn't get down to his right in time. A straightforward chance came in Southee's next over, when Deonarine drove straight to short cover where Brendon McCullum dropped the catch. The batsman, on 40 at that stage, immediately responded with a fierce back-foot punch through cover for a boundary. He completed his fifth Test half-century in the 100th over of the innings off the 126th delivery he faced. Two overs later, though, an Anderson delivery kicked off from a length and caught the shoulder of the bat en route to the keeper, ending the batsman's 187-minute vigil.
Bravo was also dropped when on 82 by Neil Wagner off his own bowling and made most of the life to stroll to his fifth century - his first outside the subcontinent - 15 minutes before lunch with a boundary to fine leg off Ish Sodhi. After being aggressive in the first half of the innings - he reached his 50 in 64 balls - Bravo opted for patience scoring his second fifty in 136 balls. Once the new ball stopped swerving, he unfurled some trademark shots through cover. In one instance, he found the gap through a crowded off-side field twice in a row off Wagner with flowing cover drives, prompting the bowler to push a man to the deep. Unbeaten on 146, Bravo continued to thwart New Zealand after they had a good start to the day.
Southee and Trent Boult, fresh after a good night's sleep, started the day with only a hint of reverse swing to work with in otherwise easy batting conditions and Southee didn't take long to make the first breakthrough. In his second over of the morning, Southee took a sharp chest-high catch off his own bowling to dismiss Marlon Samuels for 23.
Samuels hasn't looked comfortable while batting in this Test with his feet rooted to the crease, and that tendency led to his downfall in the second innings too as he pushed the delivery back to Southee rather than leaning on it.
The second wicket arrived five overs later, in Neil Wagner's second over, as the bowler got one to tail into Shivnarine Chanderpaul and struck him right in front. Chanderpaul reviewed the decision in hope but the replays only confirmed that the ball was crashing on to the leg stump. It was Chanderpaul's second dismissal in the match to an incoming delivery from a left-arm seamer after he had left a similar delivery from Boult alone in the first innings.
The challenge for New Zealand in the last session would be to get past Bravo, who seems to have assumed Chanderpaul's role in this innings.
New Zealand break threatening stand
This article
New Zealand break threatening stand
can be opened in url
http://naturalherbmedic.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-zealand-break-threatening-stand.html
New Zealand break threatening stand
