The howler
DRS wasn't missed in the first Test, but it would have saved Brendon McCullum in the fourth over of the day when he was given out lbw off Shaminda Eranga. Eranga had been firing it into the pads, and though McCullum defended down the wrong line to one that moved in a touch, he got a thick inside edge on the pads and was adjudged lbw. He stared at the umpire, muttering expletives, before punching his bat in frustration as he exited the field.
The near-miss
Ross Taylor's good luck in the first hour of his innings went some way to negating the misfortune of McCullum's dismissal, as he edged several times before reaching the 30s. He had edged Eranga over the slips twice in one over - once just evading the tips of Angelo Mathew's fingers - but his closest call came off Mathews a few overs later. Taylor went back to defend the ball, but Mathews got it to jag back at him, and the Taylor's inside edge just evaded the stumps on its way to the fence.
The physics-defying bail
Late in the second session Mahela Jayawardene dived at short midwicket to intercept a Taylor drive, and the ball deflected towards Thilan Samaraweera at short mid-on, who picked up the ball and shied at the stumps, seeing Taylor out of his crease. The ball hit the off stump, causing it to rattle visibly, but the bail stayed firmly in place, leaving Samaraweera to stare dumbfounded at the furniture. Tillakaratne Dilshan jogged to the offending wickets at the end of the over and lifted the bail, just to make sure it wasn't glued on.
The shot
Taylor shelved his brute power strokes during his century, and perhaps nothing epitomised this better than the boundary he hit to sign off on day one. Nuwan Kulasekara was bowling with the second new ball, and he went full, searching unsuccessfully for swing. Taylor's drive was more off a checked push, but he had timed it beautifully and the ball sped past the bowler and to the straight boundary, all along the ground. Mid-off barely moved, except to retrieve the ball from the boundary.