How it should be done

Second Test

It’s lunch on day three and New Zealand have a first innings lead with wickets to come, they are well on top.  England haven’t helped themselves by dropping chances and not picking a spinner but mostly they didn’t get enough runs first up.  Burns, Sibley and Lawrence can hold their heads up and Wood smacked a few too but Crawley and Pope were out to poor shots and you just have to feel sorry for Bracey, the most unlikely selection who still seems in a state of shock.

Both teams seem to be treating this short series as a warm up for more prestigious matches in the near future.  Of the two teams New Zealand have greater excuse for doing so and from here seem to have greater strength in depth, which is hard to believe.  I get that there are injuries and I get that players need rest but Test cricket is the ultimate and leaving out star players should not be a talking point.  The game deserves the best players as does respect for the opposition.

I wrote the above at what in theory should have been the half way point of the match and after England’s bowlers had kept us in it, I looked forward to the batting fightback…  It never came and there was an air of inevitability about the collapse.  England were very poor, the pundits are saying the modern trend for quirky techniques is to blame but whatever the reason, the batting line up that I felt was coming together to be something special is making my words seem foolish, the inconsistent England is back.  Sibley, Crawley, Pope and Lawrence must all get runs or get off the team bus.  Bracey has had a dream chance handed to him, fill in your own cliché here.  New Zealand have given England a lesson in how to play test cricket and were superior in all aspects.  True we have major players out for all sorts of reasons but on the evidence of these two test matches New Zealand’s best XI beats our best XI and fair play to them. 

Now the Kiwis are in Southampton, facing India for the world test championship and at the end of a rain affected couple of days the match is evenly poised.  Either team would make a worthy winner of the new trophy and both have recently shown England how the game should be played.

Test Cricket!!!

 The test match summer sneaked up on me again this year, England vs New Zealand for two test matches but both teams have their eyes on over fixtures this summer.  But England should never under estimate the Kiwis who are certainly one of the best sides in the world and not playing the test championship final by accident.  England picked a strange team but they often do that these days, even without rotation, resting and injuries.  The batting line up was pretty much as you'd expect in these circumstances but someone called Bracey came in behind the stumps for the poor injured Foakes and someone called Robinson (yet another Ollie which I find confusing...) had managed to get a bowling spot.

New Zealand won the toss and obviously elected to bat, their debutant Devon Conway opened then dominated the next couple of days finishing with 200.  Nicholls also chipped in but no one else did and a strange looking card saw them reach 378.  For England Jimmy and mad Mark took a few wickets but the most noise was created by Ollie Robinson who took four, but that was only part of the story.

England batted and as was the norm in India, wickets fell at regular intervals and by the end there were four ducks on the sheet.  Root passed forty as did that man Robinson but the star was Rory Burns who returned to test form with 132 and held the whole thing together.  England all out for 275 with the excellent Southee taking six wickets.

Somewhere amongst all that a day was lost to rain which probably ruined what could have been a good test match.  New Zealand thrashed a lead then declared on the last afternoon setting England a target they never tried to chase.  Root got out in thye forties again but Sibley scored a much needed 60 so will hopefully carry some confidence forward.

Also during the match it transpired that Ollie Robinson had sent racist/sexist/homophobic tweets when a teenager, for which he apologised.  All of us men are dickheads when we are teenagers but you'd expect someone growing up in this millennium to know better.  I expect Robinson will get left out as some kind of punishment but he does deserve another chance.  If he talks any more bigoted bollocks then kick him far into the long grass please.

On the face of things New Zealand had the better of this match but not by much and I did find it annoying to hear English pundits moaning about us not having a go at a tempting target.  The next match starts on Thursday, We've now got our traditional poor first test of the summer over with, England are capable of playing much better but I suspect the Kiwis are too.   If we put out a full strength side then I really don't believe New Zealand could live with us on home soil but these two teams look evenly matched and the series could go either way.