Collingwood helps superb Ambrose to rescue England

9:19am Friday 14th March 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

TIM Ambrose delivered an aggressive counter-attack to paper over another failure from England's misfiring top order and prevent the prospect of another humiliating collapse against New Zealand.

The Warwickshire wicketkeeper produced an innings bristling with defiance at the Basin Reserve to prevent a desperate batting display dominating the opening day of the second Test.

Still smarting from being dismissed for 110 during the 189- run opening Test defeat at Hamilton and 81 in their previous outing against Sri Lanka at Galle before Christmas, England's batsmen knew they owed a performance.

But again they failed to deliver after losing five wickets in 23 overs after lunch, leaving the tourists in danger of complete capitulation at 136 for five when Ambrose arrived at the crease.

His mixture of dangerous adventure and determination helped England to a more comfortable 291 for five at the close after he dominated a 155- run stand with Paul Collingwood, which at least gave the tourists hope.

He rode his luck at times - several attempted drives flew over the slip cordon - but hit 15 fours and two sixes to finish the day tantalisingly close to his maiden Test hundred in only his second appearance.

I was watching the other batsmen who batted ahead of me and they found it hard to keep balls out because New Zealand were bowling in good areas,'' explained Ambrose after his unbeaten 97.

But from quite early on in my innings I found that I was seeing the ball quite well and that I had to make sure that if the ball was in my area I did not miss because runs were going to be hard to come by.

The situation was slightly different to Hamilton because it's a true pitch so you can trust the pace and bounce of the ball, whereas in the last Test it was slow and low and hard to score on.'' Ambrose's impressive innings had picked up where England had begun the match, with openers Michael Vaughan and Alastair Cook finding little difficulty in forging a 79-run stand before lunch.

That comfort zone was broken by all-rounder Jacob Oram when he bowled Vaughan with the second ball after the interval then had Cook caught behind in his next over to spark some alltoo- typical panic.

Andrew Strauss fell seven overs later when he was deceived by Kyle Mills' slower ball, clipping it straight to point, while Ian Bell's desperate struggle for 52 minutes at the crease was ended when he edged Chris Martin behind.

New Zealand perhaps sensed a repeat of the Hamilton collapse when Kevin Pietersen was bowled by seamer Mark Gillespie, who was preferred to off-spinner Jeetan Patel, when he switched his angle to bowl wider on the crease.

But Ambrose survived the ten minutes until tea by hitting two fours through point and drove England forward to a far more respectable position.

We were under pressure, there was no doubt about it,'' admitted coach Peter Moores.

We needed a partnership and that's what we have a team for and you're always hoping two people will get in and be able to take the game away from the opposition a little bit.

The nice thing was he actually came back and played some aggressive cricket and put them under pressure. It was a great partnership, it put us in a strong position and we needed it."

Ambrose's performance also topped the stunning efforts of all-rounder Oram, who continued where he left off from Hamilton, where he finished with figures of 21-9-27-1.

It took England 17.2 of his overs before Ambrose drove him down the ground for the first boundary off his bowling. Oram also bowled his 10th maiden out of 25 overs in the final over of the day to deny the boundary required for Ambrose's century.