KEY POINTS:
Jamie How and James Marshall helped themselves to some important time in the middle as New Zealand reached 92 for one shortly after tea on a rain-interrupted second day in their three-day cricket match against Kent at Canterbury today.
The prospects of any play had seemed bleak at
the start of the day, when torrential rain wiped out the first three hours of play, but eventually the clouds lifted as Kent, sitting pretty after Rob Key's 178 not out, declared on their overnight 324 for one.
At stumps How was on 53 and Marshall was on 20.
How's 53 came from 106 balls and included eight fours.
Marshall, bidding to fill the gap left by the retirement of former captain Stephen Fleming ahead of the test series, showed patience. His 20 came in 78 minutes.
"Flem is a hard player to replace," Marshall said.
"He has obviously played a lot of cricket for New Zealand. But it is a different era now, so hopefully whoever takes that role will express their own skills. I don't think there is pressure to try to be like Flem.
"At the moment I am batting at three and I guess if I score heavily leading up to the tests there is an opportunity to play there.
"For the moment my focus is on scoring runs and getting used to the English conditions."
New Zealand players in the Indian Premier League were starting to dribble into the team camp with Kyle Mills and Jacob Oram arriving overnight, ready for this week's second warm-up against Essex at Chelmsford.
Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor will all have arrived by Friday (NZ time).
Until then second-stringers have a chance to stake claims for places in the team to play the first test at Lord's on May 15.
How, the stand-in captain, opened with Aaron Redmond, the son of the former New Zealand opener, Rodney, who scored a test century in his solitary appearance against Pakistan in Auckland in 1972-73.
Redmond junior impressed during New Zealand's one-day curtain-raiser at Arundel on Monday, scoring 72 in a rain-curtailed encounter, but he was less effective today.
Redmond should have been dismissed on 11, with the score on 23, when he edged an off-stump lifter from Martin Saggers low to Matthew Walker's right at second slip.
But he had added only three runs to his total when he waved his bat limply at Ryan McLaren, and feathered the simplest of chances through to Geraint Jones.
How was the most effective of New Zealand's brittle openers during the recent test series at home against England, and he picked up where he had left off with a comfortable half-century that he completed with a flourish of boundaries in a brief resumption after tea.
Kent's bowlers toiled with limited impact on a pitch that their New Zealand counterparts had also found to be unresponsive.
SCOREBOARD
Kent
First innings
J Denly c Marshall b Southee 12
R Key not out 178
J Tredwell not out 123
Extras (5b, 5lb, 1w) 11
Total (for 1 wkt, 90 overs) 324 declared
Fall: 25.
Bowling: C Martin 19-7-53-0 (1w), T Southee 15-3-49-1, I O'Brien 21-5-73-0, G Elliott 10-2-42-0, J Patel 21-2-81-0, A Redmond 4-1-16-0.
New Zealand
First innings
J How not out 53
A Redmond c Jones b McLaren 14
J Marshall not out 20
Extras (1b, 2lb, 1w, 1nb) 5
Total (for 1 wkt, 38.2 overs) 92
Fall: 35 (Redmond)
Bowling: M Saggers 11-6-16-0, R McLaren 10.2-2-29-1 (1nb, 1w), S Cook 7-0-25-0, A Blake 4-1-17-0, J Tredwell 6-5-2-0.
- NZPA
