Cricket: Fiery spell by Cairns steamrolls England

LONDON - Chris Cairns became the fifth most successful New Zealand test bowler of all time at Lord's yesterday.

Cairns picked up his sixth five-wicket bag for New Zealand on the first day of the second cricket test as England were reduced to 183 for nine when the day ended because of bad light.

His five for 75 lifted his tally of test wickets to 117, one more than Richard Collinge.

Only Sir Richard Hadlee (431), Danny Morrison (160), Cairns' father Lance (130) and Ewen Chatfield (123) have claimed more test victims.

"I'm just 13 wickets away from dad. I can't wait to get past him," Cairns said.

"It was really special to get that five-wicket bag here at Lord's. I could feel the atmosphere when I walked through the Long Room on the way out to the wicket.

"There is so much history about the place it just feels great. I love opening the bowling and the ball swung more in the afternoon.

"It was a bit dark after tea and we wouldn't have been that keen to go out and bat in those conditions. That's why I bowled a no-ball to Phil Tufnell."

Cairns' performance yesterday was full of marked swing and bounce and was more significant because it came at a time when Geoff Allott is battling to recapture last month's exceptional one-day success.

His 10 overs, in two spells, produced another drought yesterday but it didn't matter for New Zealand as Cairns celebrated his opportu-nity to take the new ball.

He has now picked up 20 wickets on tour, the same as Daniel Vettori, who was not needed in the attack yesterday and has bowled just six overs in the test series so far.

New Zealand's other success story was lion-hearted Dion Nash, who followed up his 11 wickets at Lord's five years ago with the wickets of Alec Stewart (for 50), Mark Ramprakash (4), and Aftab Habib (6) for the cost of 49 runs off 22 overs.

Nash and Cairns were responsible for England's afternoon batting collapse when four wickets fell for 23 runs off 45 balls.

It was a profitable day's play for New Zealand who got the ball to swing but had to work hard on a dead pitch. They may have been even better placed if they had pitched a few more up to the batsmen.

The most memorable wicket of the day was the dismissal of Read, the 20-year-old wicketkeeper, who was undone by a change of pace from Cairns.

Read ducked as if it was a dangerous full toss but it turned out to be a yorker which knocked back his stumps.

But there could be worrying similarities between this test and the last one at Edgbaston if New Zealand's batsmen don't capitalise on another gutsy performance by the bowlers.

The odds favour New Zealand after day one but there's still a lot of cricket to be played. - NZPA