Australian batsmen one step ahead of New Zealand, reveals Neil Wagner

New Zealand bowlers toiled really hard in the first innings of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG with Neil Wagner being the pick of the bowlers ending up with figures of 4/83. But the Australian batsmen were just too good with Travis Head (114), Steve Smith (85) and Tim Paine (79) scoring important runs to help them post a mammoth first-innings total of 467.

"Pretty tough day. We put in a lot of hard work yesterday and were hoping for some rewards early doors and there wasn't any," Wagner told in a press conference at the end of day two.

"We kept fighting and I think that's one of the personalities of this team, we kept giving everything. The opportunities didn't really always go our way," he further added.

New Zealand bowlers tried to change their tactics, with Wagner bowling a barrage of bouncers and short deliveries to unsettle the Aussies but the batsmen tackled them pretty well and cashed in when the bowlers erred in line and length.

"Full credit to the Australian batsmen. They've almost been a step ahead of us in some ways. Showed a lot of patience, some clear plans and they kept doing that through the whole innings," Wagner stated.

Wagner rounded up by also mentioning about the luck factor that quite didn't really go their way, as there were many edges that either went though gaps in the slip cordon or fell short of the slips.

You've got to be ruthless against a quality batting line up. I guess you've got to be better for longer and you need a bit of luck and we didn't really have that," he concluded.