Ton of steel from Clarke

KENT BLECHYNDEN/The Dominion Post

COURAGEOUS: Michael Clarke celebrates his century at the Basin Reserve in Wellington yesterday.

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Michael Clarke produced one of the most courageous hundreds in recent times, to cap a fine day for Australia on day one of the first test against New Zealand, at the Basin Reserve.

In shades of Steve Waugh against England in 2003, Clarke pushed the first ball of the last over to cover, scampering through to bring up a richly deserved century.

Despised in some quarters for leaving this tour to attend to a personal issue, the vice-captain returned to cricket and the team in magnificent style yesterday, helping Australia to 316 for four at stumps.

Having got to 50 in 102 balls, Clarke brought up his hundred in just 39 more, as he and Marcus North (52 not out) took the day away from New Zealand in the final hour. It was a vast improvement from where they had been at 176 for four, but probably no more than they deserved after dominating the bulk of the 90 overs.

"We let ourselves down quite a lot, actually," debutant Brent Arnel said of the day's finale.

"The first two sessions were exactly what we wanted and we were happy with that and we knew going into the third session what we had to do and we didn't execute the plans.

"We needed to just put the pressure on, but Clarke and North – they came out quite positive and they wanted momentum before the next new ball [at 80 overs] and they got it. We were pretty disappointed, yeah."

After the usual feeling-out process, there was a sense something pivotal was about to happen as Australia cruised to 100 for one, inside 34 overs.

Everything that had occurred earlier suggested it would be Ricky Ponting taking New Zealand's bowlers to the cleaners, but Simon Katich had other ideas. Or rather just one poor one, which was to run his captain out.

Having nudged an Arnel delivery into the offside, he called Ponting through for a single, hesitated, finally went and then, three or four paces down the wicket, knew the skipper was in real strife. BJ Watling dutifully threw down the stumps and an unexpected door had opened for New Zealand.

The old adage about looking at a scoreboard and then imagining it for the loss of two wickets more materialised, as Michael Hussey nicked Chris Martin to Watling at third slip to quickly worsen Australia's position from a healthy 104 for one to 115 for three.

That brought Clarke, the target of weeks of tabloid tittle-tattle, to the crease, where he was greeted by warm applause. There was the odd heckle too, as he took a nervous 16 balls to get off the mark, but he took the cat calls in his stride to play a genuinely morale-boosting innings.

Marcus North, under pressure due to a lack of form, rather than who he used to date, also produced a knock of substance and, with Brad Haddin in next, the Aussies are poised to launch on day two.

Proceedings had begun in rather tame fashion after Australia won the toss and batted, enabling New Zealand to enact the bowl-first plan they'd come in with, anyway.

You might have expected a few fireworks in that case, but the four-pronged seam attack could barely manage smoke, let alone sparks. Everyone got a go until, with just 19 overs gone, captain Daniel Vettori decided he'd seen enough and brought himself on to bowl.

The quicks were steady enough, with Arnel deserving a mention for claiming his first test scalp (Phillip Hughes) just five balls into his career.

"I was ecstatic, a dream come true, especially getting it so early," Arnel said of his scalp.

"Probably more batsman error than my bowling, but I'll take it."

He'd been given the ball sooner that he'd probably anticipated, after umpire Ian Gould had misgivings about where Tim Southee's feet were going. An informal warning about running on the pitch was issued and thereafter Southee spent the bulk of the day bowling from Asad Rauf's end.

It's funny how a score also looks different depending on who's asked who to do what. Ninety-three for one at lunch represented an average bowling performance from New Zealand, but it didn't look as poor as if they'd taken that option themselves.

Perhaps it was the unexpected inclusion of Hughes, in for the injured Shane Watson, that threw them, but their bowling looked devoid of both plan and venom. They might not possess the armoury to blast teams out, but when you set your stall on bowling first, you presumably do it with a strategy in mind.

Evidently that was to try and bore Australia out, because it was almost holding-pattern stuff from the get-go. Success for New Zealand in this series will depend a lot on the positive intent they show and, in that first session, they exhibited little.

SCOREBOARD

AUSTRALIA First innings P Hughes c Taylor b Arnel20 S Katich lbw b Arnel79 R Ponting run out41 M Hussey c Watling b Martin4 M Clarke not out100 M North not out52 Extras (2b, 12lb, 2w, 4nb)20 Total (4wkts, 90 overs)316 Fall: 25, 104, 115, 176. Bowling: C Martin 19-1-63-1 (2nb), T Southee 13-2-55-0 (1nb), B Arnel 20-3-70-2 (1w), D Tuffey 16-6-35-0 (1w), D Vettori 21-2-69-0 (1nb), M Guptill 1-0-10-0.

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