Gusts Bode Well As Spinners Blow Hot at Old Trafford

It was a rare wind for Manchester, rushing in from the east, whistling over the Old Trafford lodge, buffetting batsmen and bowlers alike and disappearing over the B&Q superstore.

Because the opponents were New Zealand, everybody was tempted to compare it to Wellington, although it has to be said that Old Trafford lacks Mount Victoria and a harbour less than a mile down the road.

Manchester Airport measured the wind at about 45mph and there was a time when spin bowlers would have had to bowl into it as a matter of course. The seam attack might also include one grouchy into-the-wind-specialist, often bereft of hair to reduce wind resistance, and the rest of the fast bowlers would keep the wind at their backs.

At Old Trafford, the spinners have had it easier. Daniel Vettori has never liked bowling into the wind, believing that when he does he just "puts the ball there" and so his threat is diminished. As New Zealand's captain and best bowler, he gets his choice to bowl at the end he wants, especially on a surface that has offered him assistance from the outset.

Old Trafford deteriorates naturally like a good Test pitch should, a tendency which is increasingly uncommon in an era when so many Test pitches are of unvarying character. This is a generation that is much taken with slowing the aging process, but it is regrettable that it has stretched to Test pitches as well.

Quite rightly, when Peter Marron, the Lancashire groundsman, promised that it "will get worse" he did so with an understandable pride. Vettori's 12 overs on the third day brought three wickets for 26, two of them classical dismissals for a left-arm spinner - a catch at first slip after a sharp turn found the edge.

Kevin Pietersen was the biggest scalp, after he had added only four to his overnight 22, but the ball that accounted for Tim Ambrose was even better, deceiving him in the flight and leaving him off balance as he played the shot.

New Zealand were helped by the fact that they had a specialist into-the-wind bowler in Iain O'Brien, who at 31 has only played six Tests and whose survival in the Wellington side is often attributed to his enthusiasm for the role that nobody else wants.

As long as he held things together at the Stretford End, New Zealand's disciplines would hold, and by conceding only 12 runs in eight overs - a spell that included Ian Bell caught at slip - he did precisely that.

Panesar regards Vettori as a role model, so he also bowled with the wind in his favor. He had bowled into the wind for much of the first innings, and had disappeared at nearly five an over as he was hit down the ground more often than he would have liked. This caused England more problems because they do not have a natural into-the-wind bowler and Jimmy Anderson was forced to accept the responsibility, just as he had in the second innings of the second Test in Wellington in March when the wind was at its strongest.

New Zealand did not let Panesar settle in the first innings and they tried to follow the same policy. But this time Panesar had the upper hand. What Vettori achieved with slip catches, as he probed around off stump, Panesar achieved with a more wicket-to-wicket line and four lbw decisions. Add Vettori out sweeping to deep square leg, and it gave him figures of five for 31 in 12 overs at tea.

New Zealand, at 99-6, were 278 ahead and no side has successfully chased that in the fourth innings at Old Trafford. Umpire Simon Taufel refused a similar number of exuberant shouts when Monty danced around so madly that had a sudden gust of wind caught his patka he would have last been seen flying over the Irish Sea.