Captain Nasser Hussain praised England's ability to overcome the grief at Ben Hollioake's death to push hard for victory in the second Test.

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Having set an unlikely victory target of 356 off a minimum of 86 overs, England took too long to remove New Zealand's top order, and the home side reached 158 for four at the close.

But despite not wrapping up the series at the Basin Reserve to wrap up the series, Hussain was pleased with the performance, just 48 hours after hearing of the all-rounder's death in a car crash in Western Australia.

"We were very professional and given what happened earlier in the week, there was a lot of pride and passion shown from the team," said Hussain.

"We've asked high standards of the them and a lot of professionalism and they've been there before, all of those lads have dug deep before and they had a good cause to do it for here.

"We were hopeful of bowling them out, but the pitch didn't deteriorate as much as we'd have liked and it didn't reverse swing until late. It was disappointing but we stuck at it pretty well."

Hussain added that the memory of Nathan Astle's heroic effort in the first Test had contributed to the timing of the declaration.

He went on: "I thought it was a pretty fair declaration and we gave them a sniff and they didn't take it. But we stuck to our task well."

New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming admitted England had thoroughly outplayed his injury-ravaged outfit.

And he added: "We wanted to go into the chase in a positive frame of mind but we knew 356 was a tough ask.

"The more risks we took then obviously the more we would have played into their hands."