4th June Day one
Welcome back TMS and the voices of summer! New Zealand won the toss and put England into
bat under gloomy skies, to see our batsmen reduced to 55-5 was predictable and
didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
NZ played and won a test match in Ireland last week so came to Lords in
the groove while England’s players had played a few county games. To see England bowled out for 140 was no
surprise but to be fair NZ bowled really well and only Brook gave his wicket
away but not until he’d played a typical innings of 56, although he was dropped
twice along the way. With less than
forty overs bowled in the match, England were in deep shit again and it seemed
all too familiar.
But Ollie Robinson bowled a superb opening over to leave NZ
2-3 and there was only one loose ball in his opening spell which was
6-3-10-4. This is the player that hadn’t
been picked for two years. Atkinson and
Tongue chipped in with wickets too and play finished with NZ on 61-6, England
have a chance of a first innings lead which is insane.
Day two
England managed to bowl out New Zealand without too much
fuss, Robinson got five and deserves his place on the hours board. NZ were 113 all out so England finished with
a lead of 27 and the second innings progressed slowly but surely passed
100. Gay in his first Test reached fifty
but when he was out with the score 126-3 it sparked a collapse to 126-7 and the
game was swinging towards the southern hemisphere. Together Smith and Atkinson steadied things
and later Robinson chipped in and for the second day in a row England benefited
from bad misses in the field. Eventually
all out for 226, England set NZ 254 to win the match. Just like the first day, New Zealand had to
start batting again after spending most of the day in the field, England had to
make the new ball count. With the score
finishing on 36-3 and Williamson gone they just about did. England on top but one decent partnership
could swing it the other way.
Day three was a non event, a few overs bowled, a few runs
scored and two wickets for Robinson put NZ even deeper in the shit. Day four began with a New Zealand win
possible if unlikely but any England nerves were settled by an Early Wicket for
Tongue. This was followed by NZ’s best
partnership of the match which passed fifty before it was broken by
Stokes. Atkinson soon mopped up the tail
to finish with five and England won by 115 runs. In the context of this low scoring match the
margin of victory amounts to a thrashing, England were better in every department,
it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that!
There was a lot of chat about the pitch which was very poor,
not good enough for any first class cricket, let alone a Test match. Thankfully it didn’t favour one side over the
other, It was a fair and even contest but not a memorable game of cricket. England go one up and will almost certainly
name an unchanged side next week but we haven’t learned much about this ‘reset’
England team. I have learned that I
still care though.
Or do I? Professional
sportsmen, people given the one in a million chance to follow their wildest
dreams and make a living doing something most of us can only wish we had the
ability to do. Sadly some of these fortunate
people don’t have the intelligence to stay out of the fucking pub, morons. What goes on in Stokes’ head? He’s given us once in a lifetime performances
on the cricket pitch but his after hours shenanigans have cropped up and got
him into trouble before. His attitude
when interviewed during the most embarrassing Ashes series in living memory was
arrogant and out of line. Everyone needs
to let off steam, fair enough but what are professional sportsmen doing in a
night club in mid series? But for off
field decisions England could be ranked number one in the world and I’ve been
critical of the Kiwi but is Stokes off field stupidity the real problem? Is it him selecting players that have no
business in test cricket? That the
captain doesn’t think a team curfew applies to him is completely wrong. “Run towards adversity” they say but you get
the impression this squad would run blindly towards a pride of hungry lions or
swim a crocodile infested river. Worryingly
they’re in South Africa this winter…
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