"The music is a giveaway," writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald. "You replace the rock/grunge/pop at decibels designed to prevent conversation with the more sedate soft folk/gentle pop/string quartet sounds which lend themselves to reclining on the grass bank, indulging in the odd nap."

Between December 2006 and January 4 this year, New Zealand did not have a single Test at home. The focus was strictly on the ODI game in preparation for last year's World Cup in the Caribbean. It got New Zealand their customary semi-final finish. With due respect to Bangladesh: England are here, the ODIs are done and the real game is back with us. There's a proportion of the cricket public who'll yawn and get back to life's realities. For others this is what they've been waiting, well, years for: a true test of a cricketer's worth.

England played 11 Tests last year, including seven at home and Simon Wilde, the Times correspondent, is counting down the days to the end of this slow Test. He believes with Twenty20 taking control of everyone's thinking, it is hard to recallibrate the mind to the subtleties and tempo of a five-day marathon.

The Guardian's Vic Marks thinks if Lalit Modi, the chairman of Indian Premier League, had been at the Hamilton Test, he would have kept his cheque-book in his pocket.