Australia v New Zealand: first Test, day four – live!

7th over: New Zealand 16-1 (Latham 5, Williamson 10) The New Zealand captain starts with a bang! Well, more a caress really, as Williamson eases away back-to-back boundaries to deep backward square from Starc’s full and straight deliveries. Then reaches out for a brace behind point. After the way his teammates have struggled through half a dozen overs. Different player, different pitch, different gravy.

That’s what Starc’s bounce can do. A miserable Test for Raval comes to an end, as the bowler gets lift and it takes the shoulder of the bat and flies out to point where Lyon is waiting. Pace and bounce. At least Raval has batted for a few overs this time, but his score matches what he made in the first innings.

6th over: New Zealand 6-0 (Raval 1, Latham 5) Cummins to Latham, another maiden, though there’s a moment of interest when Latham flicks a ball that hits Travis Head on the shins at short leg. No time for the fielder to react there.

5th over: New Zealand 6-0 (Raval 1, Latham 5) There’s a run at last, as Latham stabs off his pads against Starc. A short leg waits for a catch, along with three slips and a gully. Raval opens the face nicely against Starc on the off stump, playing the ball on the bounce, but just too fine to get past third slip. Starc is left-arm over the wicket to these left-handers, and chanelling it nicely just outside the off stump. Plenty of chat from Matthew Wade spurring his teammates on, you can hear his voice ringing around the ground almost every ball. Five more scoreless deliveries for Raval.

4th over: New Zealand 5-0 (Raval 1, Latham 4) Cummins comes around the wicket with a left-handed pair at the crease, and gets a whole over at Raval. The bowler does the disciplined thing, working away at off stump, but Raval defends and leaves competently. NZ haven’t scored since the first over.

3rd over: New Zealand 5-0 (Raval 1, Latham 4) Starc hits a crack and the ball flies laterally! It jags sharply away from Latham’s edge, beats the bat by a mile. Very little risk of hitting those, plenty of risk if the ball is at the stumps, like the one that got Dawid Malan at the WACA in 2017. Latham faces out a maiden.

2nd over: New Zealand 5-0 (Raval 1, Latham 4) A big appeal as Cummins hits Raval on the thigh pad and it lobs to slip. There was no bat on that, says the umpire, and the Australians belatedly agree. Raval leaves most of the over, though plays at one that’s too close to the edge for comfort. Still, even getting through the first couple of overs might feel like a win for a batsman under siege like him. Time to breathe, regroup, face the next.

1st over: New Zealand 5-0 (Raval 1, Latham 4) Mitchell Starc to start, and he has the pink ball swinging straight away, into the left-handed Raval. This opening pair made one run between them in the first innings. Raval equals that by stabbing a ball off his pads behind square leg and shouting “Yes, Tom!” Through they come. Tom Latham gets off the mark in rather more authoritative fashion, on-driving straight of the diving fielder. Lovely.

New Zealand trail by 463.

Or two days to bat for a draw. Neither a very likely task. With Starc and his boundary-hitting one, Australia decide not to risk Josh Hazlewood with the bat, and Lyon runs off alongside Starc after the wicket falls. Five and a half sessions left in the Test match.

Australia are obviously likely to win, because even if Starc and Cummins tire they’ll have Lyon to bowl on a wicket that did plenty for him at his first attempt. But even if New Zealand lose here, they’ll get some encouragement out of how they’ve bowled in the second innings here. Once they got on a roll, they’ve dominated Australia really with the ball. A similar story to 2015: they’ve started to compete after being blown out of the water early, and that disparity may be the decisive one in this series result.

Wagner ends with 3-59 to go with his 4-92 in the first innings. He’s bowled an incredible 60 overs, most of it short and hostile, in Perth’s heat. He should be on a drip until Boxing Day. Southee followed 4-93 in the first innings with 5-69 in the second, bowling 51 overs. And Colin de Grandhomme bowled 39 overs while picking up two wickets and going at well under three runs per over. It’s been a commendable performance from a group of bowlers who lost a teammate to injury on the first day.

Australia will be on to bowl without Josh Hazlewood in just a minute.

Starc goes down swinging, as is his way. Outside off from Southee, back of a length, a big top edge to almost a short third man position where Ross Taylor is waiting. Simple catch. Five wickets for Southee at a cost of 69 runs.

68th over: Australia 211-8 (Starc 18, Lyon 0) Well, Starc has his go at Southee with the ball as well as verbally now, slamming a shot back that hits the bowler in his follow-through. Hit Southee on the leg but it probably saved four runs, so he may not be too unhappy. Starc slams another one, he’s really lining up the fielders at the moment, and cover can only make a half stop as that ball whistled towards him. One run from the spillover, the only score from the set.

67th over: Australia 210-8 (Starc 17, Lyon 0) Wagner to Starc makes it easy for him first up, a full toss that Starc can swing down the ground for four. Wagner gets back to his usual length, but Starc shows his teammates how it’s done and powers a pull shot away for another! Then a glance off the pads for one, in the air but safe behind square, and Lyon uses his thigh pad in lieu of a bat to deflect a ball to the fine leg fence. “Has he played a shot?” asks Wagner incredulously of Umpire Lalalalallong. Starc meanwhile at the non-striker’s end is in the umpire’s ear complaining about Tim Southee for something or other.

66th over: Australia 197-8 (Starc 8, Lyon 0) Change in the bowling, Tim Southee for the first time today. Starc only knows one way, so he drives Southee aerially straight down the ground for a one-bounce four.

65th over: Australia 192-8 (Starc 3, Lyon 0) Vision from the dressing room shows Josh Hazlewood padded up, so he will bat despite his hamstring twinge. Australia must want to go as late in the day as possible, even if that only means a couple more overs. JH has played a few long supporting innings in his time. Starc versus Wagner is only going to have one approach, lots of short stuff with two bat-pads either side of the wicket, a yorker slipped in amongst it to test him, and eventually an attempted pull shot that limps away for a triplet of runs.

64th over: Australia 189-8 (Starc 0, Lyon 0) Nathan Lyon comes out to join Mitchell Starc, and survives the last ball of de Grandhomme’s over.

Another catch off the pull shot! After all that time being tenderised by Wagner, facing de Grandhomme must have felt like a holiday. Wade nails a cover drive for four, carves a wider ball over backward point off the top edge for another, then goes to the well once too often when he gets a half-short ball and spins around for a slap at it. Raval is two-third of the way to the fence and he catches the ball low down while running in. A strange old dismissal, to refuse the shot against Wagner so assiduously and then play it near the end of an already productive over against someone else.

63rd over: Australia 180-7 (Wade 9) Wade is setting up so defensively in his mindset that when Wagner slips and bowls him a high full toss, Wade can only pat it back to the bowler. Wagner tries a knuckle ball and Wade ducks and lets it hit him on the thigh. No chance of a left-hander being lbw to a left-armer bowling around the wicket, everything is pitching well outside leg stump. But finally Wagner pitches up and Wade plays a shot, a single away behind square. That brings Cummins on strike, and probably Wagner doesn’t adjust his line to the right-hander well enough, but it gets him a wicket. Short down the leg side and Cummins gloves his attempted glance through to the keeper. Must be a solid blow to the hand because he’s looking a bit ginger with his right hand as he comes off.

62nd over: Australia 179-6 (Wade 8, Cummins 13) But while Wade is pursuing his austerity project, Cummins does the scoring at the other end. First he glances de Grandhomme to the fine leg fence, then cuts him through cover for four more! Two bad balls from Colin, who must be aching and creaking after a big bowling workload through the last four days. He’s bowled on each of them.

61st over: Australia 171-6 (Wade 8, Cummins 5) The meat-tenderiser approach continues, Wagner bowling short and Wade taking the hits rather than using the bat. Ricky Ponting is hopping into him on the telly, asking why he isn’t trying to score from these short balls to protect his body. Which seems a touch unfair: once you’ve watched four or five teammates get out doing exactly that, it’s a reasonable conclusion that you should stop playing cross-bat shots.

60th over: Australia 171-6 (Wade 8, Cummins 5) A good battle shaping between Cummins and de Grandhomme. First ball, hits the pad and the bowler appeals but there’s an inside edge. Second ball, looking for the pads again and Cummins drives gloriously through wide mid-on for two! Just timing, that is a top quality shot, though it gets hauled back. Third ball, squares him up and beats the outside edge.

59th over: Australia 169-6 (Wade 8, Cummins 3) Wagner to Wade, who is hit on the glove and that hurts! Wade is a tough character, he stood there and took half a dozen hits on the body last night when the Kiwis were bouncing him and he wanted to preserve his wicket. But this ball has him hopping and yelping reflexively as it crashes into his hand, probably the thumb by the look of things. Wagner is bowling left-arm around the wicket to the left-hander, into the body, and Wade wears another one on the body this morning rather than pulling. A lot of wickets fell to the short ball last night, so he’s just trying to be disciplined. He’s wearing a small forearm guard, covering about half the forearm, and he’s hit there and then around the hip. It’s a maiden, aggressive stuff from Wagner.

58th over: Australia 169-6 (Wade 8, Cummins 3) It’s Colin de Grandhomme to start the day with the ball at medium pace. Pat Cummins to face. The over is accurate, on or around the off stump aside from the last ball, that Cummins can glance fine for two runs.

Australia lead by 419.