To bat or not to bat?

A cluster of post-lunch wickets in Wellington suggested WG Grace was wrong when he famously advised against ever bowling first, says Vic Marks, in the Guardian, on the first day's play between England and New Zealand in Wellington.

Five down and here we go again. Yet England don't always bow to the inevitable, either. And it was a new, fresh face that arrested the decline. Tim Ambrose came out and played without paranoia, as he did for Sussex, as he does for Warwickshire. He had the effrontery to hit Oram for two boundaries, doubling the number the big man has conceded in the series. The pitch was sleeping again. Was Vettori right to bowl? What's a good score? Er ... I'll tell you in two or three days' time.

"Short men are handy cutters and pullers sometimes as well, and [Tim] Ambrose is no exception. Little chance was missed to slash square or chop down to third-man. An occasional one went over the slips," says Mike Selvey on Ambrose's 97 which helped stem England's top-order collapse.