New Zealand v England: Nick Compton relief as tourists fight back

Nick Compton admitted he was relieved to have scored his maiden Test hundred after England fought back on the fourth day against New Zealand.

The tourists finished the day on 234-1, still 59 runs short of New Zealand’s first innings total of 460-9d, thanks to centuries from Compton and captain Alastair Cook.

“After getting nought in the first innings I had to pull something out of the bag,” said Compton.

“It feels amazing. I never thought I would be standing here with a hundred to my name.”

After being dismissed for a duck in England’s dismal first innings effort, the Somerset player came out to bat with his side 293 in the arrears.

“I was really staring down the barrel and there was a bit of pressure on me,”, added the 29-year old, “But I suppose it just shows what you can do if you get your head down and don’t look too far ahead.”

“The 90s were horrible. It was probably one of the worst hours, and it felt like two hours.”

“But the bigger picture was the game and I wanted to make sure I kept my eye on the ball.”

“It would have been easy to try to run down and have a flap at the spinner before the new ball but I thought it was important that I stayed here.”

Cook’s score of 116 was his 24th in Tests and his sixth in seven matches as captain, and Compton was full of praise for the 28-year old.

“He had a phenomenal tour in India and he’s switched back on out here,” said Compton. “His record speaks for itself; he’s just a run machine and he keeps going.”

England are now primed to salvage a draw out of the First Test, but Compton knows that there is still work to do on the final day.

“We’ve got another day to go, they are going to come hard at us but we’ve just got to try to do a bit of what we did today.”

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