The first part of the day didn’t go to plan, quick runs didn’t
come, Cook was out for 162, Ali made 43 but England were all out for 345. As an England fan I felt confident we couldn’t
lose but how nervous would the kiwis make us?
After two balls the answer was “not very”. Five balls later it was “not at all” and when
Taylor fell with the score at 12-3 a win seemed inevitable. England’s bowling in the hour before lunch was
intense and brilliant.
NZ performed better after lunch, Williamson hung around a
while with Watling, (who had come in ahead of McCullum for some reason) but
Stokes ripped out two in two balls and England believed again. Watling remained with Anderson and they put
on 107 runs, could the kiwis hang on?
No, Wood bounced out BJ and Root snared Corey. The game was up, NZ hung around a bit but
eventually all out for 220 and England had won a brilliant test match.
The stats; 40 wickets for 1610 runs in five full days of
cricket.
This New Zealand side is possibly the best that has left
their shores, certainly much better than the abject rabble I watched surrender
in a morning at Trent Bridge in 2008.
For England to beat them is an impressive performance made even more so
because we kept battling back from adversity.
At 30-4 we are used to seeing England all out for 150 but instead we
recovered to 389. The Kiwis reached 400-3
but England clawed it back to 523 all out.
Again second innings we were 25-2 and 75-3 but reached 478 in quick time
too. Then on the last day our bowlers
had obviously learnt from their first innings mistakes and pitched the ball up!
Credit to New Zealand, they came and played the game in good
spirit and had spells in the game when they were dominant. In the end they may have become victims of
their own egos and perished because of their all out attacking philosophy?
As for England, well we looked a good team in this match but
there’s another tough test starting on Friday in Leeds. After this one we should be able to assess
our Ashes chances…
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