Debutant Ben Sears said that picking Steve Smith’s wicket in the 2nd Test against Australia ‘calmed’ him down to a large extent. With butterflies in his stomach, Sears donned the whites for New Zealand for the first time after William O’Rourke struggled with injury.
On the very first ball that Sears bowled in Test cricket, Smith whipped him through square leg for a four. But in the third delivery, Sears produced an absolute peach to get rid of Smith.
Smith did not offer a shot and was hit on the pads, after which the umpire raised his fingers. After the batter used the DRS, replays showed that the ball was clipping the stumps and the on-field decision was upheld.
“No, it was good fun. It was nice to contribute a little bit and, yeah, pushed the game forward. Nice to get a wicket. (Wicket of Smith) Yeah, definitely calmed me a little bit,” Sears said after the day’s play.
After the Kiwis were bowled out for 162 in their first innings, Sears gave his team a brilliant start by picking the wicket of Smith, who scored 11 runs off 24 balls with 2 fours.
Matt Henry lauds Ben Sears
At Stumps on Day 1, Sears had figures of 11-3-38-1. Australia are trailing by 38 runs with 6 wickets left in their first innings.
Sears also conjured praise from Matt Henry, who praised the speedster for bowling his heart out. Henry also talked about the importance of chipping away at wickets to put Australia under pressure.
“Yeah, it was great. I think the way that we started with the ball and, obviously, the way Sears went about his work early, and we could create some pressure from both ends and, I mean, that was probably something we talked about and making sure we did for long enough, they kind of put the pressure back on us a little bit there, but we managed to grab it back, taking wickets is key out here,” Henry said.
