Pakistan threatened to shoot themselves in the foot by gifting wickets to Martin Guptill - yes, you read that name right - before they rallied through a 128-run stand between Mohammad Yousuf and Faisal Iqbal. If the morning belonged to Guptill, the afternoon session, interrupted by rain, saw Pakistan making slow but steady progress.
Iain O'Brien and Daniel Vettori bowled as well as they could on a flat pitch but Yousuf and Iqbal stood firm. It looked almost inevitable that Yousuf, who missed out in the first innings, will collect some handy runs on this flat track. Vettori used the crease well, varied his pace cleverly and utilized the arm-ball intelligently but Yousuf handled him with aplomb. He moved forward or back as the length demanded of him and picked the arm ball on most occasions.
There was one piece of action which perfectly caught the spirit of the contest between the two: Yousuf came down the track but Vettori cleverly slowed up the pace and shortened the length. However, Yousuf waited to adjust to the lack of pace and though he couldn't reach the pitch of the ball, he didn't panic or lunge out; instead he almost nonchalantly wafted through the line and found enough power and timing to lift it over long-on. And barring an edge off Chris Martin that flew between the keeper and wide first slip, he was pretty comfortable against the seamers. He unfurled his square and cover drives and rotated the strike with wristy dabs.
Faisal wasn't as solid as Yousuf but he fought on to score a valuable fifty. His iffy footwork meant he was caught at the crease a few times and forward when he should have been back but he soldiered on. He was even dropped on 48 when he edged O'Brien straight to Ross Taylor but he punctuated his nervy shots with a few extravagant cover drives. It was that kind of knock where he delighted and frustrated you equally before he fell, guiding Martin to Taylor, who held on this time. The afternoon was a calm affair if you compare it with the events that preceded it.
If that late great English fast bowler Fred Trueman were alive and commentating on this game this morning, we would surely have heard his legendary phrase: "I just don't know what's going off out there". Nothing Pakistan do shocks anyone anymore but even their die-hard followers would have raised their eyebrows when Guptill, who has not bowled a ball before this game in Test cricket and has just a solitary first-class wicket, removed the openers in quick succession to leave Pakistan wobbling in Napier.
It was a bizarre, fascinating, and hence funny, little first session of play. What made Vettori to open the bowling with Guptill? More importantly, what were Pakistan openers thinking? Not much if you go with the evidence. When Guptill tossed the third delivery of the day outside off stump, there wasn't anything in its trajectory that made you feel, 'hold on we are on to something here'. It was a gentle, perhaps a bit loopy, delivery that floated ever so harmlessly outside off but Salman Butt scooped it back to the bowler. The bottom-hand had kicked in too much and he couldn't keep his off drive down.
Batsmen do make mistakes and irregular bowlers have from time immemorial picked up lucky wickets like this but surely Guptill can't do it again. Wrong. He flighted, nay floated, a full toss in the seventh over of the day. Farhat, who seemed muddled after Butt's dismissal, moved down the track to try snap out of the nightmarish start to the day but ended up patting the full toss straight back to Guptill. Surprisingly, there was no visible surprise from Guptill when he took the catch. Perhaps he was too shocked to be merely surprised. It was that kind of a day.
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