Day 1 at Bulawayo

Groan. Another dead pitch, the kind which does no one any good. Not the Zimbabweans, whose bowlers' fangs were clipped, not the kiwi batsmen, who can expect less friendly conditions in Australia next month, and certainly not the viewers. The initial stages of captaincy continue to be kind to Rossco, whose winning the toss must surely be the play of the day.

NEW ZEALAND: Had the best of the conditions, must make 500 now. Hard to read too much into a batting lineup which is returning after a nine-month layoff. Prince Brendon is stuck in one-day mode and duly didn't last long. Guptill has found his dream bowling attack in the Zimbabweans, and one hopes he hasn't peaked too early. He seems to be taking test match duties veery seriously, which is a good thing. Wunderkid Williamson looked the best of the batsman, keeping the scoreboard ticking when Guptill got bogged down. Taylor was amazingly restrained, which makes you wonder what effect cpataincy would've had on Baz. Watling looked terrible but lives to fight another day.

ZIMBABWE: Without conditions in their favour, and without their first-choice lineup, it was a decidedly uphill task but they stuck to it well. Apart from a few freebies early on, generally made NZ work for their runs, though Ray Price is starting to look as ineffectual as Vettori has in recent times. Debutant Ncube looks useful, and Kyle Jarvis was threatening with the second new ball giving them hopes of early inroads tomorrow.