Finn's brute

With the aid of a fumble by the cover fielder, Alastair Cook moved further clear of England's other Test century-makers with his 25th hundred. Such are the high standards now expected of Cook, it had been noted that he had not been quite at the top of his game since his previous hundred in Dunedin but he was back to his best in this innings. During the course of his innings he went past 10,000 runs across all international formats with the promise of many more to come.

England's second innings prompted much discussion about tactics, but when Joe Root came to the middle he just got on with his job with the same smile he was worn for the whole match. He was quickly into one-day (or Twenty20) mode and showed, again, how he holds no fear at this level. Against Neil Wagner, still maintaining decent pace despite New Zealand's awful situation, Root calmly reverse swept the quick bowler through the vacant slip cordon for the most cheeky boundary of the match.

Perhaps Steven Finn had just heard about Watford's failed attempt to reach the Premier League with defeat in the Play-Off final at Wembley because the delivery he produced to remove Dean Brownlie verged on unplayable. There had been signs of some uneven bounce and when Finn banged in a short ball - although not quite a full-on bouncer - it reared towards Brownlie and followed him as he tried to sway out of the line. His instincts took over and he fended at it with his gloves, the ball lobbing up to provide gully with a simple catch. Hostile fast bowling.

While Finn makes batsmen uncomfortable with pace and bounce, Graeme Swann does it with guile and deception. He had been all over Martin Guptill in the first innings - for his brief stay - and worked him over again second time around. He began by searching for the same gate that he spun through yesterday, but in the end it was the arm ball (or, as Swann would probably say, the one that didn't spin) which took Guptill's edge to slip. It has not been a happy Test return for him.