On the first day of the second Test between New Zealand and England, English middle order batters Joe Root and Harry Brook smashed centuries and dominated the first day’s game with ease.
Young batter Harry Brook has become a consistent performer for England’s squad in the past year. He smashed 184 runs off 169 balls including 24 fours and 5 sixes. With this ongoing fierce innings Brook became the youngest batter to score 800 runs in just 9 Test innings. Earlier, the record for most runs in 9 Test innings belonged to Vinod Kambli (798 runs in 9 innings) but Brook named this record to himself on Friday. He also went through great names including, Herbert Sutcliffe (780 runs), Sunil Gavaskar (778 runs), and Everton Weekes (777 runs). Brook’s batting partner, Joe Root has also claimed his 29th century as he is still unbeaten on 101 runs off 182 balls, including 7 fours.
With the day start, New Zealand’s pacer and skipper Tim Southee and experienced Matt Henry provided early breakthroughs to their team as they knocked off England’s openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett on just 2 runs and 9 runs respectively.
Then Ollie Pope came on the crease, but he couldn’t managed to stay on the pitch and got caught by Bracewell on Southee’s delivery. By this wicket Southee completed his 700th international wicket and became the first New Zealand bowler to reach the milestone.
England was struggling at 21/3, then Harry Brook came on the crease and steal the early dominance from Kiwis. He continued his remarkable form with Joe Root at the other end and they made an unbroken partnership of 294 runs and took over the whole day and remained not out.
In the two match series, England have already won the first at Bay Oval by 267 runs, and leading the two match series by 1-0.