Iain O'Brien

Batting warm-ups are great. We're two down and there's no chance I'll be bowling anytime soon. I head down early again to get a net in before we start to warm-up properly. Over to Nelson Park to get on the bowling machine and I had a really good 'net'. Started with some full stuff, which wasn't really going to help me if I get a bat today as they're not going to bowl full to me, then moved onto some shorter stuff. That's more like it. Felt pretty good, the feet were working and I was seeing it okay. It's always a lot different out in the middle though.

Watching Timmy Mac bat yesterday was just brilliant. Watching him bat today was even better. He was like a barnacle on the bottom of a ship, he just would not budge. No matter what the Windies threw at him they just couldn't faze him - just couldn't get to him. All day he just dead-batted the good balls, ducked the short balls he didn't want to hook and stroked the fuller ones where he wanted. He looked great and fully deserved this, his first, Test match hundred.

Jesse Ryder, again, hit the ball like nobody else can. He is one serious player and stroked his way to a pretty 57. We sit back in the changing room watching him bat with awe just wishing we could have as much time as he seems to have.

And there lies day two of this Test match. A day I will never forget. A day I don't want to forget. I have never felt like that in a Test match before. I had bowled 16 overs the previous day and woke this morning feeling a lot better than I would do normally. I'm not saying I feel that tired and stiff after 16 overs, I just felt real good. I had done my hot cold the previous night, had a really good massage and hit the sack after writing this. A good sleep, a chat to my wife this morning, breakfast and down to the ground early to get my feet strapped up for today's play.

For those that are interested, the big toe is a lot better. It was still a bit 'weapy' this morning, but wasn't throbbing or painful to touch. Good job, that...otherwise the physio, who was 'oh so very keen' to get the paperclip in there, would have had some explaining to do!

I wore my compression tights to bed last night, these aid in recovery, and I wore them out onto the field too. It just keeps the muscles warm and ready to go. Warmed up well, felt strong and had a good rhythm to my warm-up deliveries before the start of play.

So that's day one out of the way. Another mid-day start but this time the sun is shining. The deck just looked amazing, a definite bat-first wicket. We all hoped that the impressive tosser, Dan [Vettori], would come up trumps for us again. Alas, we lost the toss and are bowling.

Arrived at the ground on the early van, and headed straight over to the nets to get some work. I hadn't managed to fit in a bat the previous day at training so I thought I'd get some in early this morning. It was good, hit the ball pretty well and ducked and weaved well enough to feel as good as I can going into this match. Quickly back to the ground and I had a quick TV interview before heading off to warm-ups. A quick chat to Simon Doull about the preparation and way the match will go, also a quick chat regarding my blog. It seems that everyone is surprised that I am doing it, but as far as I can understand, they all enjoy reading it.

During that interview I said that if we had to bowl first it wouldn't be the end of the world. If you're going to bowl on a batting deck then often it's good to get in early, see what you can do when it is at its juiciest.

Right, it's blog time. The sun is shining, and wind is rustling the trees, the sea crashes on the beach across the road and I'm happy to be alive. Life is good, and no flying for a few days! I'll tell you also why life is good. Our training yesterday was in the afternoon, leaving the morning free for whatever you wanted.

I had a late call from Dan [Vettori] the night before asking if I wanted to play golf. It was a 6.30am leave, but I knew where we were playing, and there was no way I was going to miss this round. Eight am tee off at Cape Kidnappers Golf Club. That place is amazing. Look it up and check out the quality of the place - unbelievable views, amazing scenery and a brilliant, yet really tough, course. It's fair to say it cost me a bit, especially as Baz [McCullum] and I, who were partners playing against Dan and Jeets [Patel], lost the round and had to pay for the other two, including balls, carts, clubs, lunch and whatever else those two could add to the bill. But it was all worth it, I'd pay double to go back and play again; although it's two-minute noodles for tea for the next week as I can't afford anything else.

Back to the hotel for about 1pm, a leave for training at 1.50 so a bit of time to sit down, relax and prepare. As you may remember I wrote that I wasn't happy with my bowling in the last Test and I needed to do some work. This training was the day, as it was the first time since Dunedin that we've had the weather to bowl. We always get real good training wickets up here in Napier; they are across the road on Nelson Park, a club ground with decks that most first-class grounds would be proud of.

I love Wellington, but, on days like today, I really hate the place. You see, Wellington is known for its wind. And when travelling between cities we fly. Wind, flying and me don't mix too well. Today is no exception. Leaving Dunedin with slightly overcast but still skies was nice, however, the descent in to Wellington was terrible. I get motion sickness and the bump, drop, bump, drop motion does nothing for me, well actually it does, and it makes me feel very, very bad! And here I sit in the lounge, writing this with an ice water sitting next to me and a motion sickness pill to take before we board our next flight to Napier. I should have had it before leaving Dunedin this morning!

Anyway, onto the cricket. Alas, nothing to report on for yesterday. We left the hotel for the ground at normal time. A small drift of drizzle was about but nothing of note. Not much had changed by the time we got to the ground, apart from the cloud build up which was a little greater. Ten minutes later and that had changed quite a bit. It was now proper drizzling; not quite raining, but more than just a wisp of rain. Another 10 minutes after that it was raining.

We knew, as players, that with this rain, play today probably wouldn't happen. The outfield still wasn't great from the rain earlier in the match and it really didn't need a top up of water. The thing was too, that with the amount of time we had already lost in the match a result was going to be a hard one to work. And losing more time today did nothing for that cause.

So, in all honesty, going out to play once things had dried up was of no consequence to the result. And when play was called off, just after an early lunch at 1.30pm, it was actually the best weather there had been in Dunedin for the whole match. Irony!

As I always say, it's great to be off the park. Seeing that last wicket fall is one of the best feelings there is, only beaten by actually taking that wicket yourself. Something that didn't happen for me today, but it was Dan's honour and by bowling Shiv he picked up his sixth wicket for the innings and his 50th wicket for the calendar year. An outstanding performance from just an outstanding bowler, player and guy!

Today just wasn't my day. Things just didn't work for me. I tried as hard as I could to bowl my maidens, to string together dots. For some unknown reason, I wasn't up to it. I wasn't trying too hard and getting tense; I wasn't too relaxed and had no intensity: it just wasn't my day. It's easy to say that, but I have to sit down tonight and have a good think about the day, what happened and why. These are often the toughest nights; a bit of soul-searching and every effort to turn it around for the next day. Although we don't have to go out and bowl straight away, hopefully not for quite a while actually, I will hit the nets in the morning and work some things through.

I'm still not sure about these 'scheduled' mid-day starts. I'm just back from the ground now, and it's 8.45pm. That's far from a perfect time to get back to the hotel. Sure, there was some overtime today and we played till 8pm, but I don't know if they need to have us starting so late.

Arrived at the ground this morning to be greeted by a helicopter hovering above the outfield. Not the normal thing to be seeing and we knew Stanford wasn't in town, so it could only mean one thing, the outfield was still wet. Someone forked out some cash to quicken the drying process up. Nice job! It still couldn't do the job to get the game started on time, although that may have taken 30+ deg and a good strong breeze. The groundsmen think it speeds up the drying time by about five hours, which means, if they hadn't used it, we wouldn't have played at all today.

Start time delayed till 2.45pm after consultations and inspections all day. It's a tough situation to be in, yes we want to play cricket, yes we could have played cricket a little earlier, but ... the outfield was still damp and a little 'splashy' in parts too. This means at least two things, player safety and the state of the ball if it gets 'wet'. No one wants anyone slipping and pulling up injured and it isn't fair if the ball gets wet for the bowling team. We do everything we can to keep that thing as dry as possible so that it keeps its hardness and its ability to swing. One puddle and it takes a few overs to get those properties back.

I said yesterday we were greeted with blue skies; today, not so.

We got back to the hotel last night at about 7 pm. As we had come off early because of bad light, there were clouds around. They opened up a little soon after we got back and stayed open for most of the night. We headed to the ground at 9:45, earlier than yesterday as play was due to start 30 mins earlier. Due out in the nets at 10:15 am to start warm ups. This was going to be a 'batting' warm up.

We already knew that play was going to be delayed a little because of the rain over night so there was no rush to get across to the nets. We milled around for a while and then I decided to get padded up and head over for a 'net.'

With blue skies above us and a pitch that looked pretty good our plan, as we go into Day One, is to bat first. And bat first we did. Dan won the toss, again; just adding to his impressive tossing ability! We were pretty sure we were going to be batting no matter what. Early in the warm ups we noticed that their spinner, the 6ft 8 Benn, wasn't warming up as if he was playing. That can only mean one thing, they will play the extra seamer and will want to bowl first. Therefore, no matter what, we'll be batting.

The new opening partnership of How and McIntosh headed out to face the new ball. McIntosh has shown every ability to bat for long periods of time, often for not many runs. And this was the case early in the day. I think it took him about 36 balls to get off the mark. He showed no hurry, no worry about sitting on zero for such a long time and was off the mark with one that raced through the hands just above the head of the gully fielder.

Let's kick this thing off.....

Finally some sunshine. I'm not going to come out and jump for joy about how much, but it was enough for us to get outside and train. Training on grass is the best thing for us. And unfortunately we just have to train indoors sometimes, just one of those unavoidable. Indoor training is just so hard on the body. Generally it's artificial grass straight on top of concrete. Genuine surface for batting on, but it's to bouncy and quick in comparison to what we generally play on. Not to mention it's hard on the ankles, shins, knees etc. So, normally the bowlers won't 'run' in and bowl on these surfaces; it's just not worth the injury risk. Although yesterday, with the forecast in mind, most of the bowlers did some form of bowling indoors. There was a chance that it was going to be 'showery' today and that would mean that we would have to, again, train indoors. So we all got some bowling in to make sure that we had some under our belts.

So training today, outside, on some pretty good training decks. They played pretty well for being under cover for the last 3 days. All bodes well for the bit out in the middle of University Oval. Got four overs under my belt, one to warm up, two at full pace and then one to work on different things like bouncers and other lengths. This is normally what I would have done two and three days out from a match, not the day before. But you do whatever you can to get ready when the opportunity is there. Felt pretty good. Worked hard on part of my action that I have never been happy with and am always working on; I bring my bowling arm back behind my head and almost down to my left shoulder blade. This creates a lot of torque and can mean I miss the timing of other parts of my action if things aren't going well. So I'm always trying to have it 'load' up next to my head rather than half way down my back. Maybe, just maybe I'm onto something today after chatting to our bowling coach yesterday. I won't be worrying about it too much out in the middle tomorrow, as it's too new to really be 'grooved' in, but it's something to work on.