England are confident the “soft dismissals” from the first Test against New Zealand are out of their system as they target a vastly improved second Test performance in Wellington.
The world No.2 ranked tourists have spent three days analysing why they produced another sub-par start to an offshore Test series.
Captain Alastair Cook says he can’t pinpoint why they butchered their first innings so badly in Dunedin last week when they were dismissed for 167 before doggedly fighting back to save the Test.
“They put some pressure on us but if you look at the shots, it was pretty poor shot selection or probably more poor shot execution,” Cook said.
“You can pretty much describe it as soft dismissals. If you do that against any team, you pay the price.”
England have now scored less than 200 in the opening Test of their last four away series. On the previous three occasions they have bounced back strongly in the second Test.
Cook said it was something that had been addressed before day one in Dunedin, describing the subsequent batting meltdown as a “mental blip”.
“Unfortunately our actions didn’t back up our words and it’s very hard to come back from the situation we found ourselves in. But the character to dig ourselves out of a hole is very pleasing.”
Cook believed momentum is now with his side, which should be unchanged.
The only injury cloud was that hovering over out-of-form batsman Kevin Pietersen, but he has trained fully since the team arrived in Wellington on Monday.
The Test starts on Thursday.