England determined to save First Test, says James Anderson as rain gives tourists hope

James Anderson insists England can still save this First Test against New Zealand after rain washed out all but 23.1 overs of the second day at Eden Park.

Joe Root’s team were humiliated on Thursday when they were bowled out for just 58 — England’s sixth-lowest Test total — in just 94 minutes of the first session of this two-match series.

But with heavy rain forecast for much of the next two days, there is a chance for the tourists to escape with an unlikely draw.

New Zealand will still feel they have enough time to win regardless of the weather after a century from captain Kane Williamson helped his side end a rain-curtailed day on 229 for four, a first-innings lead of 171.

But Anderson, part of England teams that saved Tests in unlikely circumstances against Australia at Cardiff in 2009 and here at Eden Park in 2013, is not giving up hope of another great escape.

“Yes, we have to keep believing we can save it because if we don’t have belief there’s no point turning up,” he said. “We’ve got to believe that we can get something out of this game.

Anderson took the solitary wicket to fall today, trapping Williamson lbw on 102 four overs after England had taken the second new ball.

He added: “There were frustrations with the rain because the new ball was only 10 overs old and we thought we were getting somewhere with it and making progress. But in the situation of the game, rain is not the worst thing in the world for us.”

The dark and foreboding weather in Auckland matched England’s mood following what happened yesterday.

Indeed, the scorecard, showing New Zealand already 117 runs ahead on the resumption of day two with seven first-innings wickets remaining, was grim reading for Anderson and his team-mates.

And if England’s situation wasn’t desperate enough, they had to contend with the fact that Williamson started the day set on 91 and primed to become his country’s leading century maker.

The 27-year-old is a rare talent and his sublime skill and timing was perfectly summed up by the exquisite on-drive to Stuart Broad that saw him move onto 95 in the fourth over of the day.

He reached his 18th Test hundred soon after, the landmark achieved in 196 balls, to move past team-mate Ross Taylor and the great Martin Crowe on New Zealand’s all-time list of century makers. The hosts had added 22 runs to their overnight total by the time the first rain interruption arrived 40 minutes into the day. England were one over away from taking the second new ball when play restarted after a 70-minute break that included an early tea. Anderson got the breakthrough in his second over with it.

England can feel aggrieved Williamson wasn’t run out on 64 during yesterday’s final session — Chris Woakes was convinced he had got a finger on a return shot from Taylor that resulted in the ball hitting the stumps with his captain miles out of his crease.

But, to all intents and purposes, the game was already gone by then in terms of England actually having a chance of winning it. Henry Nicholls had been batting defiantly at the other end today and was left one run shy of a sixth Test half-century when the second downpour again stopped play after 58 minutes of the middle session. That stoppage at 4.48pm local time was to prove terminal as showers set in. They did, however, stop at around 8pm.