Tom Blundell hammered the highest score of his test career and Rachin Ravindra returned from months on the sidelines to make 121 on day one of the Black Caps’ one-off test against Ireland at Stormont in Belfast, with the pair lifting New Zealand from 81 for four in the morning to a commanding 361 for five at stumps.
The 217-run fifth-wicket stand between the two left-handers turned a session that had looked grim into one that should give the Black Caps every chance of winning the four-day test, with Blundell finishing the day on 142 not out from 173 balls and the Ireland attack visibly running out of answers under the cool Belfast close.
Ireland’s seamers had landed two of the better punches the side has thrown at New Zealand in recent meetings. Mark Adair, the Northern Irishman who has carried the home attack across formats for nearly a decade, took three for 66 and reduced the tourists to 81 for four in the first session with Kane Williamson out for 36. According to ESPNcricinfo’s live coverage, captain Andrew Balbirnie had no complaints about being asked to bowl first, and the Stormont pitch offered variable bounce on a typical Belfast spring morning.
Tom Latham, the Black Caps captain, said before play he would have batted in any case. His team’s start did not vindicate the decision. The top order folded around Williamson, with the visiting side’s wobble exposing how thin the Black Caps’ batting reserves had become after a long T20 World Cup campaign that ended in a final defeat to India in March.
Ravindra was one of the casualties of that final. The Wellington allrounder had not played a competitive match since, and the Black Caps selectors took a chance putting him straight back into the test side after his enforced lay-off. The chance came good when Ravindra walked in at four down for not many and started the rebuild with Blundell, who had crossed with him after Henry Nicholls’ early dismissal.
He needed a reprieve to do it. According to the NZ Herald’s day one report, Ravindra was dropped on 56 by Balbirnie at first slip, an edge the Ireland captain put down low and to his right. From there the left-hander grew into the innings, reaching fifty with his second six over midwicket off 87 balls and finishing on 121 from 175 deliveries with 10 fours and three sixes.
Blundell, who has spent the past two years rotating with Mitchell Hay behind the stumps, made the partnership his own. He hit 18 fours and two sixes across his 173 balls and brought up his maiden career-best with a clip through square leg in the final session, having been chasing a new high score for the better part of a decade. The Wellington keeper bats much in the manner of the player Brendon McCullum became after first being given the gloves, with cuts and pulls preferred to anything more decorative, and the Ireland attack found little it could do to stop the boundaries flowing once he was set.
The new high will also do his case for retaining the test wicketkeeper role no harm. Hay has been preferred in white-ball formats, and Blundell’s place in the test side has come under quiet scrutiny across the 2026 summer. A run that already included three half-centuries against Sri Lanka now has a 142 not out to anchor it.
The partnership eventually ended with Ravindra dismissed for 121, leaving the score on 298. Dean Foxcroft, the Otago batter handed his test debut after a strong domestic summer, walked to the crease at that mark and stayed until stumps on 38 not out, having added 50 with Blundell in 85 balls. South African-born Foxcroft qualifies for New Zealand through residency and has been part of New Zealand A-side squads since 2024, and a test debut at Stormont will count among the more unusual entry points into the game.
Play resumes on Thursday night New Zealand time, with the Black Caps targeting a first innings score north of 500 before turning their bowlers loose on the Ireland top order. Ireland are yet to win a test against a top-tier side, and slipping into the high 300s by stumps on day one was not the position from which they had hoped to push for a first such win. Adair, who is the only home bowler with three figures next to his name on the day-one scorecard, will need help on Thursday if the home side is to keep the deficit manageable.
For all the talk of New Zealand’s transitional summer and the questions hanging over the middle order, day one in Belfast offered the simplest of reminders. When Ravindra and Blundell get in together, the Black Caps still look like a side that wins big games.
Was Blundell’s 142 the innings of his test career, and does Ravindra still belong in the top order when the Black Caps return home? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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