Five quick hits — Green steps up, Marsh hits out and Labuschagne stumbles again

Australia’s batters had a tough opening day at Basin Reserve, but a couple of stand out performances helped drag the tourists to a respectable score.

Here are the five quick hits from day one of the first Test in Wellington.

As it happened: Look back at how the action unfolded on day one in our live blogFull scorecard: Get all the scores and stats

1. Green stakes his claim

Of all the Australian batters, Cameron Green probably came into this series under the most pressure to hold his spot.

With questions being asked about his suitability to do the job as Australia’s number four, Green needed a strong performance to convince the doubters — and himself — he was up to the task. And as his teammates fell around him at Basin Reserve, his team needed that strong performance too.

Green stood up to the challenge, taking some blows to the body but digging in to lead his team towards a somewhat respectable total.

For the first 50 runs Green wasn’t quite at his free-flowing and powerful best, but he showed a resolve that hasn’t always typified his Test career to date.

But late in the day, when the tail had joined him and the innings looked like petering out, Green stepped up the tempo and blasted his way to a breakthrough century, bringing up his second half century in just 46 balls.

His first Test ton in India was impressive, but this feels like the making of the man. Australia’s new number four has taken his team out of the mire and got it back into the game.

2. Slowly doesn’t do it for Marnus

In a world where we have become accustomed to seeing strange innings from Marnus Labuschagne, the number three played another blinder at Basin Reserve.

When he edged behind for a 27-ball 1, Labuschagne fell for his fourth-straight single-digit Test score in a row.

In fact, in his last five Test innings since scoring back-to-back half tons against Pakistan in Sydney, the Queenslander has scored just 20 runs, a decline that is indicative of an overall trend in his Test career.

At a strike rate of 3.70, this effort at the Basin Reserve was the slowest rate of scoring in Labuschagne’s Test career for any innings in which he has not been dismissed for a duck.

It’s not uncommon for Labuschagne though in recent years.

Against India in Ahmedabad last year he made 3 from 20 balls, while against England at The Oval he battled for 82 balls before being dismissed for 9 — an innings that lasted almost two hours.

Then, earlier this season, he made 2 in 18 balls in the second innings against Pakistan in Perth.

This summer has not been hugely successful for Labuschagne, in truth.

He averages 25.22 from 11 innings with just three 50s, that against a career average of 50.20.

Labuschagne only has one Test century since the Adelaide day-night Test against the West Indies in 2022 — 36 innings ago.

3. Marsh briefly makes it look easy

Mitch Marsh came into the middle with Australia in a bit of a hole at 4-89 following the quick wickets of Usman Khawaja and Travis Head.

That, coupled with the glacial rate of scoring, made it seem like New Zealand were well on top.

As it turns out, just a couple of swishes of the Bison’s bat put paid to that.

Where no other Australian batter had managed a strike rate above 44 runs per 100 balls, Marsh came out and hit 39 runs in 36 balls before tea with an array of T20-style shots and sumptuous punches down the ground.

He made a greenish pitch that had everyone else tentatively prodding or hanging on for dear life look like a Karachi road.

However, the high-risk approach got Australia’s T20 skipper in trouble shortly after tea, skying a pull shot to fall for 40.

4. Spicy pitch wreaks havoc

When the covers were rolled back before the Test got underway, the green tinge to the pitch and the moisture from overnight rain made opting to bowl first a no-brainer — the cheers that greeted the decision from the capacity crowd at Basin Reserve helped confirm that.

And despite New Zealand only taking one wicket pre-lunch, the decision appeared to be vindicated due to there being plenty of seam movement off the deck.

However, it took two further sessions before the pitch really burst into life.

Green was hit hard on the bicep by a ball that darted in from a short length from Will O’Rourke.

Alex Carey too was peppered on the gloves and body with other deliveries rearing up and leaving a diving Tom Blundell shaking his head as byes flew past him to the boundary.

5. Extras do some heavy lifting

In what shapes as a potentially low-scoring Test, New Zealand will be kicking itself for some charitable bowling.

For the most part, the Kiwi quicks were bang on the money all day, but on the odd occasion they lost their radar, it proved costly on the scoreboard.

Thirty extras on the first day of a Test is tough for any team, and Australia’s predicament would be a lot greater if not for those free runs.

Wides made up most of them, and the byes column is not kind of Blundell — though in fairness to the keeper, the umpires were not kind to him throughout the day.