Yet another early morning alarm. We were back in the car at 6.30am and had one final long drive of c. 200 miles to Hamilton for a day of test cricket between England & NZ.

After a 4hr ‘shift’, we arrived at Seddon Park and were soon parked up and entering the stadium for a wonderful day in the sunshine watching Eng v NZ in the 3rd and final test of the series.

Like in Christchurch where we watched Day 1 of the 1st Test, we were sat on an open grass bank very close to the action.

With England having already won the series the pressure was off a little, but this was our chance to see England bat, as NZ had only one wicket left when play started at 11am. Things didn’t start well and continued to go ‘south’ with NZ batting almost an hour and adding another 30 runs before England went into bat.

When England’s innings started they got off to a flier hitting 30 quick runs, before the wickets started to fall.

As the morning moved towards lunch, England’s performance started to wither in the heat of the day. A couple of quick wickets fell before lunch and after enjoying a walk on the pitch during the intermission.

After lunch we made the most of the atmosphere and listening to the Barmy Army chants, whilst on the pitch the wickets started to fall on a recurring basis, with only a short pause when a 50 partnership was managed by Pope and Stokes, before they were all out at 3.40pm having scored just 143 runs, 200 short of NZ total. Not a great performance and very soon NZ were back into bat and pushing on their lead. Not quite the scoreline we had hoped for, but what an incredible experience and a day we won’t forget.

NZ were 340 runs ahead and look to be in full control with 7 wickets still left and 3 days left to really stamp their dominance on an apparent listless England.

Sadly we won’t be able to return tomorrow, as we are heading back up to Auckland to drop off our hire car and then fly down to Christchurch, before picking up a subsequent flight on Tuesday to Sydney.