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England vs New Zealand 3rd Test | ENG win by 7 wkts to win series 3-0


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  • Rousseau changed the title to England vs New Zealand 1st Test | NZ 132 - ENG 98-5
  • Rousseau changed the title to England vs New Zealand 1st Test | NZ 132 - ENG 100-6

I listened to Stokes being interviewed about his elevation to the captaincy. He was asked how he would approach the role of captain. His answer clarified what many suspected, that he's just a hit-and-hope sort of bloke with bags of self-belief but without an iota of a plan.

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ENG gets NZ on the ropes, and reeling,  and then, mirabile dictu, collapses, like only ENG can. 

There was decent bowling, which one would expect from Test Match class bowlers, but really, there was a distinct lack of Test Match class batting on display, from both sides. 

Do the players realise that this is a 5 day game?

 

If NZ rolls over the ENG tail quickly, and cheaply, then the 'momentum' may be firmly with it, but it is too tricky to call. 

 

CRICKET | MIKE ATHERTON

England v New Zealand: England’s bright start gives way to familiar failings

Lord’s (first day of five, New Zealand won toss) England, with three first-innings wickets in hand, are 16 runs behind New Zealand

Mike Atherton

Chief Cricket Correspondent

Thursday June 02 2022, 7.50pm, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/england-v-new-zealand-englands-bright-start-gives-way-to-familiar-failings-tp02f7bvt

 

For a period of time before lunch, wickets having littered the morning session, New Zealand might have hoped for a player of Brendon McCullum’s counterattacking instincts. Someone with a devil-may-care attitude to throw caution to the wind and damn the consequences, so dire was the situation. But McCullum was on the England balcony, sitting behind dark shades, surveying the kind of start which even he cannot have contemplated, optimist that he is.

England’s new head coach had said before the game that he expected an immediate improvement. This was something else, though. It only took 13 balls for the gloom to lift, when Jonny Bairstow took a spring-heeled one-hander, diving across Zak Crawley from third slip. After that everything fell into place, with supporters thumbing Wisdens before long to check through New Zealand’s lowest scores in England. The Ashes and the Caribbean suddenly felt a long time ago.

But then some old frailties emerged, as the New Zealand bowlers found their bearings and a little late swing in the evening sunshine. Having bundled out New Zealand in 40 overs, Alex Lees and Crawley had posted a half-century stand for the first wicket, with Crawley in particular playing confidently. He sent seven boundaries fizzing to the boundary in a 56-ball stay, driving fluently in the arc from mid-wicket to extra cover, before he was tempted once too often.

 

Ollie Pope sweated and left unfulfilled and the first sense of alarm came when Joe Root, bounding down the steps to a lovely, warm ovation, in recognition of the burden he has carried for the past two years, steered Colin De Grandhomme to gully. Lees missed a straight ball working to leg, Ben Stokes, in his first innings as England’s official captain, edged behind after nine balls, Bairstow dragged on to his stumps. A lengthy tail was suddenly exposed by the collective failure of the middle order, the strongest element of England’s batting line-up.

At one point, with Kane Williamson switching his seamers intelligently, England lost five wickets for eight runs in 28 balls, and the memories of the winter came flooding back. This was a strange day to evaluate: seventeen wickets fell all told, to a combination of excellent swing and seam bowling, sharp catching, some loose batting from both sides, and conditions that encouraged the bowlers just enough all day long.

 

This after one of the more absorbing mornings this great ground has witnessed, with New Zealand going to lunch 39 for six, moments after the crowd and the players had stood to pay tribute to Shane Warne. The great spinner would have surely enjoyed the sense of purpose England showed, and the way the new captain encouraged his bowlers with aggressive field settings. At one stage, the slip cordon counted six in all, waiting with predatory intent.

There were four wickets for the old-timer, James Anderson, and four for the new boy, Matthew Potts, who was given his England cap in the morning by Steve Harmison, the first of a now proud line of fast bowlers from Durham. Bairstow’s initial catch inspired a fine all-round fielding performance, and the only dark lining on the silver cloud was a concussion to Jack Leach, who hit his head hard on the outfield in the sixth over when diving to stop a boundary, and had to be withdrawn from the match.

Matt Parkinson was summoned as Leach’s replacement, arriving late in the day. Whether Parkinson, or indeed his opposite number, Ajaz Patel, who is playing his first Test since his remarkable ten-wicket haul, will find a way into a game that has already travelled at breakneck speed is questionable. Having rushed down the motorway, stopping only at Keele services on the way, at least he has a tale for the grandchildren as England’s first concussion substitute.

At the start of the day, Stokes had walked out to the toss for the first time as England’s official captain in his blazer and cap, donning a shirt emblazoned with Graham Thorpe’s name and number underneath, a tribute to the former England left-hander, who remains seriously ill in hospital. Losing the toss was a blessing initially — Stokes said he would have batted first — and there was enough movement to make life tricky for New Zealand’s underdone top order.

The new-ball threat came from Anderson, principally, who took up residence for the first six overs from the Pavilion End and proceeded to show all his old skill, accuracy and menace. Two of his first three overs were wicket maidens, and there was only one scoring shot in his opening six-over spell, that from Daryl Mitchell, who clipped a straight ball to the mid-wicket boundary. That apart, Anderson’s line was immaculate and he offered little in the way of scoring opportunities.

 

England’s catching was sharp. Bairstow backed up his initial flying effort to dismiss Will Young, with a parried effort after Tom Latham had attempted a back-foot forcing shot. Ben Foakes took a good one, low down to end Williamson’s stay, Bairstow safely pouched another to dismiss Devon Conway, who had graced this occasion with a double hundred last year, and Pope finished things off with a diving effort at mid-wicket.

The new cap Potts came bounding in from the Nursery End with all the enthusiasm you might imagine from a 23-year-old making his debut at Lord’s. Picking young players when they are in form and confident is so important, and Potts’s selection looked an inspired one immediately when he induced a fine edge from Williamson, propping forward, with his fifth ball. What a moment for him.

It was Mark Taylor, on television commentary, who noticed a likeness in Potts’s action to Scott Boland, the Australian seamer, who debuted to such remarkable effect in the Ashes, and for a while Potts looked like he might do a Boland on debut, too. Not many England debutants can have made such an impact so quickly, with Mitchell, dragging on, and Tom Blundell, bowled offering no shot, falling to him in an opening eight-over spell that produced figures of 8-4-8-3.

 

After the end of every over, Potts would get a rousing reception from the Lord’s crowd, which was almost at full capacity despite the dire warnings. Twice more after lunch, Potts was able to soak up the roar of the crowd as he stood under steepling catches at fine-leg as, firstly, Kyle Jamieson and then Tim Southee attempted to take on Anderson’s short ball. When Patel became Potts’s fourth victim, the honours board was beckoning until cramp intervened, sending him from the field.

Sensibly, New Zealand counterattacked after lunch, as the new England coach would have mentored them to do back in the day. Anderson’s second spell was markedly more expensive than his first, with the underrated De Grandhomme engineering a small revival, and summed up a topsy-turvy opening day. The new managing director, Rob Key, had warned us to buckle up for the ride, and what a ride it was. Whither the direction of day two is anyone’s guess.

 

New Zealand 1st Innings
T. Latham c Bairstow b Anderson 1
W. Young c Bairstow b Anderson 1
K. Williamson c Foakes b Potts 2
D. Conway c Bairstow b Broad 3
D. Mitchell b Potts 13
T. Blundell b Potts 14
C. de Grandhomme not out 42
K. Jamieson c Potts b Anderson 6
T. Southee c Potts b Anderson 26
A. Patel lbw b Potts 7
T. Boult c Pope b Stokes 14
Extras (lb3) 3
Total (all out, 40 overs, 205 mins) 132

Fall of wickets: 1-1 (Young), 2-2 (Latham), 3-7 (Conway), 4-12 (Williamson), 5-27 (Mitchell), 6-36 (Blundell), 7-45 (Jamieson), 8-86 (Southee), 9-102 (Patel), 10-132 (Boult)
Bowling: Anderson 16-0-66-4; Broad 13-0-45-1; Potts 9.2-4-13-4; Stokes 1.4-0-5-1

 

England 1st Innings
A. Lees lbw b Southee 25
Z. Crawley c Blundell b Jamieson 43
O. Pope c Blundell b Jamieson 7
J. Root c Southee b de Grandhomme 11
J. Bairstow b Boult 1
B. Stokes c Blundell b Southee 1
B. Foakes not out 6
M. Potts c Mitchell b Boult 0
S. Broad not out 4
Extras (b10, lb7, nb1) 18
Total (7 wkts, 36 overs, 172 mins) 116
To bat: J Leach (M Parkinson), J Anderson

Fall of wickets: 1-59 (Crawley), 2-75 (Pope), 3-92 (Root), 4-96 (Lees), 5-98 (Stokes), 6-100 (Bairstow), 7-100 (Potts)
Bowling: Southee 11-3-40-2; Boult 10-4-15-2; De Grandhomme 8-2-24-1 (1nb); Jamieson 7-3-20-2

Toss: New Zealand
Umpires: Rod Tucker (Aus), Michael Gough (Eng)
TV umpire: Paul Reiffel (Aus)
Match referee: Richie Richardson (WIS)

 

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  • Rousseau changed the title to England vs New Zealand 1st Test | NZ 132 - ENG 116-7

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