Brendon McCullum must be thanked for giving us a close Test match after his decision to not enforce the follow-on on day three kick-started a chain of events that resulted in India coming awfully close to becoming the first team to win a Test that
ended of its own volition after falling behind by 300 runs in the first innings. New Zealand led by 301 runs, the ball was swinging on the third day, their bowlers had bowled only 21 overs that day, a further break in lunch was just around the corner, but New Zealand chose to bat again. And imploded for 105.
India carried the momentum into the chase, and their batsmen nearly redeemed themselves before falling 40 short. McCullum admitted that the decision didn't look great at certain points.
When asked to explain how he arrived at the decision to bat again, McCullum said: "One of those ones where everybody has got their own opinion. In the end you have got to make your decision. In the end you live and die by the decision you make. Thankfully we are living at the end. Continue to back your instinct. Try and get as much information from your bowlers and senior players, and then you have to make that decisions. Then try to formulate plans for the decision that has been made.
"At 220-odd for 2 or 3 the decision wasn't looking too good, but we still managed to hang in there and show fighting characteristics. Just spring up fighting qualities that all New Zealand people that follow this team want to see."
One of the men to bail New Zealand out when it "wasn't looking too good" was
Neil Wagner. The left-arm quick ran in hard through the entirety of the middle session, bowing 10 hostile overs for the wickets of Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan just before the new ball was taken, which did almost the rest of the damage. Wagner then came back again to dismiss Zaheer Khan and MS Dhoni when the match approached its climax. McCullum was full of praise for his workhorse.
"He [Wagner] is brilliant," McCullum said. "He is one of those guys who never wants an opportunity to pas him by. His role in this team is to bowl a lot of overs, and hostile overs, which gives our spearheads Tim [Southee] and Trent [Boult] a bit of rest, and knowing that we are still attacking whilst they take the rest. He hasn't had a lot of luck in the last 12-18 months in terms of getting wickets, but he has thoroughly deserved those wickets today. He turned the game around. On a pitch like that, and against a line-up like India's.
"Neil Wagner's spell today epitomised everything that is going well with this team at the moment, and was delighted he got some rewards and ended up with… A great Test match to be a part of and one that we will certainly remember for a long time."
One of the reasons McCullum will remember this for a long time is personal too. He was the Man of the Match for his 225 after walking in at 30 for 3 with New Zealand put in on the first morning. "A couple of days ago I said in the press conference that if we went on to win, this would be a performance that I would cherish the most," McCullum said. "Delighted to make a significant contribution, also credit to partnerships with some other guys. Kane [Williamson] in particular and Corey [Anderson] too.
"That was more than what we thought was par in that first innings. We had to overcome some tough periods for that as well, we managed to put together some partnerships. When you get partnerships you are always going to post a sizeable total, and we did get that big score in the first innings. We know that wickets can fall in a hurry at Eden Park as well, as we saw after we went back out there after not enforcing the follow-on but we didn't play as well as we could.
"The Indian bowling was outstanding as well, put us under immense amount of pressure, and I would have certainly taken 400 as a run-chase at the start of the game. We'd have loved to have a few more in the bank when they started to put together some partnerships."
