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England batsmen got into a good nick against some quality bowling in a rain interrupted day at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The visitors made a fitting 256 for 4 in reply to New South Wales’ 355 for 9 declared in their three-day warm up match.
The two match winners for England, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff got going against a strong NSW attack that consisted of Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken and Stuart MacGill. At stumps, Kevin Pietersen remained unbeaten on 80 along with his skipper, Freddie Flintoff who is two short of a fifty. Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook had also chipped in with fifties. The only failures were Marcus Trescothick who played onto his stumps of a Brett Lee delivery after making just 8 and Ian Bell who was out for a duck consumed by Stuart Clark. England were in a spot of bother when they had lost Strauss and Bell to the same bowler with the score at just 95. But Cook had steadied the ship along with Pietersen to add up 71 for the 4th wicket before he was lbw to Glenn McGrath.
Early on New South Wales who were at 325 for 5 at stumps on Day 1 had declared adding up another 30 runs at the loss of four wickets. Steve Harmison finished with 3 for 95 in 20 overs while James Anderson and Ashley Giles picked up a couple of wickets each.