One of Test cricket's charms is that each day is self-contained, not necessarily rhyming with the one before or reasoning with the one to come. When David Warner resumed on Saturday and the New Zealand bowlers took up their well-worn ends, everything looked as it was on Friday evening, propitiously for Australia, ominously for the Kiwis. But as so often is the case, the pitch on the second day was quicker than on the first, and Trent Boult and Tim Southee were encouraged as they had not been on day one, and maintained a tighter line, and found a little movement, and the character of the cricket changed, if not the course of the game.

Warner's day began with a standing ovation. From there, anti-climax always was on the cards. A four through covers seemed to announce business as usual, but then followed an edge, a miss and a nick to slip. Still, it is not often that a man gets to walk off a cricket ground before 11 am with 253 beside his name, and after swishing his bat wistfully and then slapping it against his pad in self-reproof, Warner allowed himself to be absorbed into the moment. Another standing ovation ensued.

This innings will have widened Warner's already broad horizon. Because his batting is so rumbustious, it is easy to overlook the element of calculation in it, not just ball to ball, but in how he scopes his progress. Before he had played a Test, when he was being fitted out by Cricket Australia as the poster boy for T20, he predicted that he would make a successful Test career and chuckled rebelliously at the conniptions this might cause the board. And he did, and it did.

For a while, he could not disentangle his short- and long-form games. But he has now, without sacrificing one wit of his trademark vibrancy. In this innings, played over nearly seven hours in draining conditions for bowlers and batsman, not a reverse sweep was to be seen, nor a paddle, and only rarely a dab over slips, no exotica at all. The way he hits the ball is exotic enough anyway. Because of this, no matter how much he accumulates, he will never come across as merely an accumulator.

Warner now is like an AFL footballer who has abandoned his youthful predilection to fly for speckies at every half-chance and is intent now on putting a putting a heavyweight's stamp on the game. After his twin centuries in Brisbane, he had as good as announced that he needed to make a double century, and at the very first opportunity made one. If he puts his mind to a record score, that alone will bring it within reach. It worked for Brian Lara, twice.

Warner's arsenal and his rate of scoring means that nothing speculated for and about him and record-breaking can be considered ridiculous. Equally, he might never find himself Saturday morning's threshold again _ few ever do _ and it would remiss not to cherish his 253 for the immense work it was, not rue the landmark it might have been. But you suspect he will be back there soon enough, and will have done the sums.

At Warner's exit, the match changed gears. From six an over at times on Friday, the run rate dwindled to little more than three. Australia spent most of the rest of their wickets on a fitful push for a declaration and New Zealand lost two repelling Australia's offensive, actually more of a stake-out. The cricket by then had the quality of two goats by butting horns, but without the niggle.

Kane Williamson, compact, methodical and oblivious to distraction, again was New Zealand's rock. His drove as handsomely as Warner, but less prolifically, because Australia's bowling generally was 10kmh quicker than New Zealand's and so did not rely as much on sublety. This pitch was not susceptible to sublety. An early cameo illustrated how narrow were its terms of reference; even as Steve Smith at slip applauded the line of a Mitch Johnson delivery, Williamson was stroking it for four.

At 50, Williamson's acknowledgement was as en passant as the sign of the cross; in the circumstances, this was a not a milestone, but a step, small for man, negligible for mankind. New Zealand's batting looked more fragile than Australia's, but only because Warner and co had looked so invulnerable on Friday. On its own merits, it was worthy pre-Warner Test cricket. In style, Tom Latham was Williamson's left-handed understudy, but a guilty jab at the seeming innocent Nathan Lyon undid him.

Otherwise, as on Friday, once the ball stopped moving on this pitch, so did the wickets column. Australia sustained as much collateral damage as New Zealand did actual; Usman Khawaja pulled his hamstring flailing after another boundary ball and Joe Burns at short leg body-blocked more balls than he looked likely to catch. Steve Smith had two rushes of blood, frittering away his wicket in the morning and a referral in the afternoon, but he did win his cases to change the ball more often than the bowlers in the first 20 overs. On this pitch, bowlers and balls are being victimised equally and apace.

With three days, more than 400 runs and 10 further wickets to play with, Australia will win. But they will earn it.