Follow UsKyle Jamieson felt New Zealand were always in the game despite getting bundled out for just 132 in the first innings of the opening Test of the three-match series against England at Lord’s. In response, Alex Lees and Zak Crawley put on 59 runs for the opening wicket before Jamieson came into the attack and brought his team right back in the game.
The tall seamer took two wickets in the space of 16 runs before Tim Southee, Colin de Grandhomme and Trent Boult took over and reduced England to 116/7, still trailing by 16 runs, before the end of day one.
"It was nice to find some rhythm, I felt all right for that spell, it was just nice to get into the game. When we went out to bowl, It wasn't ideal but we knew we had some time to get ourselves back in the game," said Jamieson, who claimed the wickets of Crawley and Ollie Pope.
"We still felt like we were very much in the game. We knew we had to bowl well, but as things tend to happen here, they tend to happen pretty quickly. We've seen that through the first part of the day so you know, if we put the ball in good areas we thought we had a chance.
"We thought if we get one, we can get two and then build some pressure. I think we sort of stuck with that, stuck with our lengths, stuck with our areas, we were able to reap some rewards from that and get us right back in the game."
Opting to bat first, the Black Caps were 45/7 at one stage but handy contributions from de Grandhomme (42) and Southee (26) propelled them to a respectable total of 130. When asked about New Zealand’s decision to bat first, Jamieson said: “I'm not too sure - I'm not very good at reading pitches either. I'm not really too sure what the go was there - obviously a few wickets fell. It didn't look that way initially but things unfolded the way they did.
"We were reasonably calm but it obviously wasn't unfolding how we have it ideally wanted it to. We spoke about 130 (runs), which doesn't necessarily sound great, but from where we were at, we though if we can get there and we get a few wickets today then we're right in the game."
The Black Caps played a couple of warm-up games prior to the series and Jamieson said they were not undercooked for this encounter, but wants the batting unit to put up a better performance in the second innings.
“We had two games, we had plenty of times to adjust and adapt - I think we were as good as we could be going into this game. We'll have to fight hard in that second innings to give ourselves a lead and give ourselves something to bowl at.”