Ross Taylor failed to impress in both innings against Australia. Photo / Getty Images
New Zealand cricket captain Ross Taylor admits his side made it easy for Australia in the first test, resulting in a routing at the hands of the old foe.
The Blacks Caps batsmen capitulated in familiar fashion yesterday morning at the Gabba in Brisbane, falling to a nine-wicket loss against one of the weakest Australian test teams in recent memory.
Taylor and his team were all talk in the lead-up to the test, with their declarations of confidence matched only by Australia's mounting injury toll. The top six all appeared in good nick in a warm-up draw with Australia A but, as the tourists quickly found, there's a big difference between batting well in first class cricket and taking on the big boys in a pressurised environment.
The top order once again crumbled - twice - and Taylor conceded the batting effort was sub-standard, making life easy for their opponents.
"We've got to be harder on ourselves as a batting unit,'' he said. "Not only this morning, but in that first innings there were a lot of soft dismissals.
"To be honest, Australia didn't have to work that hard for their wickets.''
That's because a significant number of the dismissals came from batsmen playing rash shots and throwing away their wickets. Their premature departures left Dan Vettori and Dean Brownlie, in just his second test, to illustrate how to bat in the longest form of the game.
In forming New Zealand's highest partnerships in both innings, Vettori and Brownlie were the only Black Caps to emerge from the carnage with any credit. In fact, Brownlie spent a total of 375 minutes at the crease - eight minutes more than the top five managed together.
What made the twin collapses more perplexing was New Zealand enjoyed the chance to face two Australian test bowlers, James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc, in the warm-up match with Australia A a week before the test. Pattinson proved chief destroyer in the Black Caps' second innings, removing each of the top five and finishing with figures of 5-27 on debut.
Taylor, who Pattinson had caught behind first ball, tipped his cap to the 21-year-old but struggled to comprehend how he had done so much damage.
"You've got to give credit to James Pattinson, he put the ball in the right areas enough times for us to nick it,'' he said. "But we had a good preparation leading up to the match, we all felt confident.''
With any remnants of confidence sure to have dissipated, New Zealand head to Hobart for the second and final test, starting on Friday. Both teams have made a change to their squad - the Black Caps calling up Brent Arnel and Australia replacing 12th man Ben Cutting with allrounder Dan Christian - but it wouldn't be surprising to see the sides unchanged.
What would be a surprise would be to see a battling batting effort, spending time in the middle rather than slashing wildly at the first loose ball outside off stump. Taylor wasn't exactly promising that, but he was in philosophical mood following the defeat and looking ahead to the rematch.
"No one ever wants to get out,'' he said. "So yeah, it was just one of those days where we didn't execute as well as we would've liked.''
By Kris Shannon- APNZ
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