The England team, who came on a tour of New Zealand, won the first match of the two-legged Test series in one-sided fashion. The visiting team defeated the hosts by 267 runs. Here the English team had set themselves a target of 394 runs against New Zealand, in response to which the New Zealand team went all out for 126 runs. English batsman Harry Brook was ‘Man of the Match’ scoring a half century in both innings.
In this match played at Mount Maunganui, New Zealand captain Tim Southee won the toss and elected to bowl first. Here, keeping up with their new Test ‘Baseball’ style of play, England declared the innings on the first day in extravagant fashion, losing 9 wickets and scoring 325 runs. Here Ben Dukat scored 84 runs off 68 balls and Harry Brook played 89 runs off 81 balls. Here Neil Wagner was New Zealand’s most successful bowler, taking 4 wickets.
In response to England’s first innings, New Zealand played quietly and crossed the 300-run mark. New Zealand scored 306 runs in their first innings. Here Tom Blundell scored 138 runs and Devan Conway scored 77 runs. England’s Allie Robinson took 4 wickets and Anderson took 3 wickets.
After taking a 19-run lead on the basis of the first innings, England continued to bat in the second innings as well. Joe Root, Harry Brook and Ben Foakes all scored a half century as England scored a total of 374 runs. Here New Zealand bowlers Bracewell and Tickner took 3-3 and Wagner and Scott took 2-2 wickets.
Chasing a mammoth target of 394 runs, the New Zealand team looked under pressure from the start. Half the team returned to the pavilion in 28 races. Aside from Daryl Mitchell (57), Michael Bracewell (25) and Tom Latham (15), no other hitter was able to hit double digits. The entire team made 126 runs. Here Anderson and Broad took 4-4 wickets. In this way, the English team won the Test by 267 runs and went 1-0 up in the series.