Cricket: Decisive step towards test win

Martin Guptill (right) celebrates his maiden test century with Brendon McCullum yesterday. Photo / Getty Images

In golf, the third round is known as moving day, as players make their move either into a challenging position or down the chute and out of contention.

So it will be at Seddon Park today when New Zealand look to take a decisive step towards victory against Bangladesh in their test match.

After the sort of day which has statisticians drooling, Bangladesh will begin at 87 for one in reply to New Zealand's 553 for seven declared - their fourth best test score after being sent in to bat.

Those who relish cricket by numbers go to sleep dreaming of days like yesterday, when well-thumbed record books get a serious workout, courtesy of a monumental sixth-wicket partnership of 339 between Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum.

Even the greatest of all cricket names, Don Bradman, was on the lips, as the New Zealand pair came up seven runs short of one of The Don's bigger partnerships 73 years ago.

Both batsmen hit their highest test scores - Guptill's 189 was his maiden hundred in his ninth test and his highest first-class score; so was McCullum's 185, and his fourth century in his 50th international - as Bangladesh were precisely taken apart on an easy-paced pitch.

The pair had got New Zealand out of a jam at 158 for five on the first afternoon and once they got through the opening half hour yesterday it was cash-in time.

So often, particularly in their first 30 years, New Zealand have been in the record charts for the wrong reasons. Too often they haven't taken their opportunity. But Guptill and McCullum made sure they did this time.

The conditions offered plenty of help to the bowlers on the first day, but yesterday the Bangladesh bowling had all the snap of week-old lettuce.

The key for two batsmen who possess an instinctively attacking default setting was to use a modicum of care.

They did and the records tumbled through the first four hours of the day.

Guptill and McCullum were effectively engaged in an open wicket practice for much of yesterday.

The bowlers kept trying but the batsmen have had far tougher examinations and will again shortly when Australia arrive. The field placings meant easy pickings. But the point was they kept up their standards, didn't get sloppy and now sit among the record-making elite.

On the first afternoon, Bangladesh had a chance to put the acid on New Zealand. Not for the first time in recent tests they let it slip, and that's the next part of their development as a test nation.

Guptill and McCullum seemed set for a double hundred apiece - which would have been a notable first in a New Zealand test innings - but departed within five overs of each other.

McCullum played inside the line to be bowled, having hit 17 fours and three sixes. Guptill, after almost seven and a half hours and 310 balls, edged an attempted hook to the wicketkeeper.

Those dismissals gave Rubel Hossain his first five-wicket return in a test. He shelled runs as if working in a pea factory, but ran in hard and earned his success.

Any notion that Bangladesh would hunker down for the final session lasted about one over.

Openers Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes began seemingly without a care, intent on making big inroads en route to their first target, 354 to avoid the follow on.

Tamim, in particular, won't die wondering as he cut, swept and pulled his way to a bracing half century in only 39 balls, helped by some undemanding bowling.

The 20-year-old entertainer has hit two centuries in his past seven test innings and looks to have just one speed, the foot firmly planted to the floor.


Numbers game:

* Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum's sixth-wicket stand of 339 is the third highest for that wicket in tests, behind Mahela and Prasanna Jayawardene (351, Sri Lanka against India, Ahmedabad last November) and Don Bradman and Jack Fingleton (346, Australia against England, Melbourne 1937).

* It is the third-highest partnership for any wicket by New Zealanders in a test, behind Andrew Jones and Martin Crowe (467 for the third wicket against Sri Lanka, Wellington 1991) and Glenn Turner and Terry Jarvis (387 for the first wicket against the West Indies, Guyana 1972).

* McCullum's 185 is the highest score by a New Zealand wicketkeeper in a test, surpassing Ian Smith's 173 against India at Eden Park in 1990. It is equal ninth highest on the alltime list for a wicketkeeper in a test.

* McCullum's is the fifth-highest score by a No 7 batsman in tests. The other four were double centuries, headed by Bradman's 270 against England at Melbourne in 1937.

* Guptill fell 11 short of becoming the third New Zealander to have a double hundred as his maiden test century after Mathew Sinclair (214 against the West Indies, Wellington 1999) and Martin Donnelly (206 against England at Lord's, 1949).