Stephen Moore and Gareth Batty rescued England Lions after a poor start in their two-day game against New Zealand Emerging Players.
Moore and Batty help Lions recover from poor start at Lincoln Oval
Stephen Moore and Gareth Batty rescued England Lions after a poor start in their two-day game against New Zealand Emerging Players.
Deciding to bat aggressively in testing conditions, the Lions lost early wickets before Moore and Batty both hit half centuries as the tourists made 278 in 80.2 overs, while the hosts had made 12 without loss by stumps.
Worcestershire man Moore hit his second successive half century on the tour with his 59 coming off 92 balls before being bowled by Lance Shaw.
County team-mate Batty hit 66 off 88 balls, and managed to add a much-needed 107 runs with the final three wickets to boost England's score.
28-year-old Moore shared an 87-run partnership with Samit Patel and continued his good form heading into the two-Test series in Queenstown on March 7.
Innings
"The longer you can stay out in the middle, the better at this stage of the tour," said Moore.
"I've worked on a few things this winter and I feel pretty comfortable out in the middle. After being indoors for a few months it does take time to get used to grass wickets again and being outside.
"The conditions here are very similar to England early season. We've had a bit of rain recently here, there's a bit of life in the wickets so it's a good test for us. We're trying to get as much as we can out of these games before the start of the Test series."
The aggressive manner of the Lions' batting did not work out early on, with opener Joe Denly, skipper Robert Key and Luke Wright all failing to make double figures as they slumped to 8-3.
Moore says that despite the early slump, the Lions will continue to adopt an attacking batting policy as they try to dominate games from the start.
Attacking intent
"We've been very clear about the fact that we want to come here and play dominating cricket," explained Moore.
"We have set out where we want to go and we want to set that tone.
"We want to be a side that can stand up with their chest out and make sure we can dictate terms when the time is right. We have gone out there with intent to show purpose in what we want to do.
"But along with that comes the responsibility to make the right decisions and we've probably been a bit slack with our decision making and execution.
"There was some really good positive intent from all the players when they come in to bat, which has been reflected in our run-rate in these early games. That will get better the more games we play out here."
For New Zealand, Mitchell McClenaghan took five wickets off 13.2 overs, including the wicket of Batty, as he impressed with the ball.
