Will England spoil the condition of the team which defeated India badly? Harry Brook signs a century

New Delhi. Harry Brook scored his seventh Test century and shared a 151-run partnership with Ollie Pope for the fifth wicket, as England turned the tide in the first Test cricket match against New Zealand on Friday. At the end of the second day’s play, Brook was playing on 132 and Ben Stokes was playing on 37 runs. Both of them have so far added 97 runs for the sixth wicket. England have scored 319 runs for five wickets in their first innings and are only 29 runs behind New Zealand who had scored 348 runs in their first innings. New Zealand had recently defeated India 3-0 in the Test series.

How important the partnership between Brook and Pope was can be gauged from the fact that when Brook stepped onto the crease, England was struggling at 45 runs for three wickets. Soon the score became 71 runs for four wickets. Pope supported Brook well from here and he took the score to 222 runs. Pope was out after scoring 77 runs in the last session.

England did not have a good start and lost the wicket of opener Jacques Crawley early who could not even open his account. After this, Nathan Smith, playing his first Test match, first dismissed Jacob Bethel (10) in the second over of his Test career and then sent Joe Root (00), playing his 150th Test match, to the pavilion. Will O’Rourke did not allow opener Ben Duckett (46) to complete his half-century.

New Zealand’s fielding was not good and they gave life to Brook on individual totals of 18, 41, 70 and 112 runs. Brook took full advantage of this. So far, he has hit 10 fours and two sixes in his innings of 163 balls. Earlier in the morning, New Zealand increased its first innings by eight wickets from 319 runs to 348 runs. From his side, Glenn Phillips remained unbeaten after scoring 58 runs.