Watch: Rewind and watch it over and over, Captain Kane's catch was a blinder - now can he deliver an all-time great Test knock today?

Of the 233 runs, for the loss of 13 wickets, so far scored in New Zealand's first pink-ball day-night Test, Kane Williamson has 91 of them.

Of the other 15 to have taken guard, only he has passed 33, almost untroubled.

Yet, for his brilliance with the bat, that catch yesterday - that catch - a wrong handed, split second, horizontal mid-air snow-cone grab simply defied belief.

Of course it was perfectly in keeping with the scenario of how things unfolded on day one at Eden Park - New Zealand were near perfect, England, ...well, not so much.

Their abject 58 has already incensed the scribes on Fleet Street  and will likely have more long-term repercussions for Joe Root and England, just as Brendon McCullum's side's 45 all out in Cape Town in 2013 proved to be a line in the sand moment for McCullum and Mike Hesson.

Not that it made it any easier for coach Trevor Bayliss to swallow last night.

"Simply, when the ball's full, you've got to play forward and, today, a lot of our guys (got) out playing from behind the crease to fairly full balls," Bayliss said post match.

"Someone sneezes and the rest of the guys catch a bit of a cold.

"Then everyone was making the same types of mistakes - the feet not moving properly; decision-making not as it normally is."

The big question, can they recover.

"Look, whenever you don't do well, it does hurt," Bayliss said.

"All we can do is take it on the chin, work out what we can do better and go back and work as hard as we possibly can on it."

The obstacle they have in their way is of course Williamson.

In the first half hour this afternoon, he should summit the rarefied air of an 18th Test hundred, making true Martin Crowe's 2015 proclamation that Williamson, now at least by the numbers, would be our best. Not that it will matter greatly to him at around 2.30pm today, in his mind, it will be just a start.

The real question, even quietly in the recesses of England's thinking, is just how big can, or will he go? 

The simple truth is that the match is on his bat. England's desperation was varily evident in wasting two needless reviews on him last night.

If he goes big this afternoon so does New Zealand and the tourists will need rain - plenty of which looks to be on the way.

Interesting times loom on day two.

Simon Winter is a former Fairfax Media and 1 NEWS cricket reporter. He is the current News Editor at 1 NEWS NOW.

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