New Zealand v. England. Tests

[Donny]

First Test.

England elected to bat first at the Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui.

1/101. Burns 44*, Denly 32*.

[Donny]

2/114. Burns 52, de Grandhomme 2/20.

Denly 36*.

[Donny]

4/241 at stumps.

Denly 74, Stokes 67*.

[Pies4shaw]

Stokes goes to a screamer of a catch by Ross Taylor, high up and to his right. 91. Buttler and Pope are at the crease, now. 5/277.

[Pies4shaw]

Pope goes now. Caught behind (in front of first slip), chasing a very wide one. 6/286.

[Pies4shaw]

Curran lbw first ball. Great spell from Southee. 7/286 (edit: England, not Southee, who has taken all 3 this morning and has 4/52). Hopeless review, really. That said, I think the ball tracking looks wrong for this pitch I really don’t think that ball was going to hit so high up the wicket. It was, though, certainly going to take both middle and leg.

[Pies4shaw]

Boult gets Archer at slip. 8/295. England have lost 4/18. This time, Southee didn’t get the wicket but he did take the catch at second slip.

[Pies4shaw]

And with that wicket, Boult and Southee both have 255. That’s an excuse for the commentators to put up a list of highest Test wicket takers for NZ. Unsurprisingly, Hadlee stands out in the list as the greatest bowler (possibly the only genuinely and consistently Test-standard bowler, having regard to the bowling averages) NZ have ever had. Still, this morning’s viewing has been funny.

England 8/301.

[Donny]

8/314. Buttler 19*.

[Pies4shaw]

Interestingly, the commentators just discussed a graphic showing the line of the 8 wicket-taking balls so far. Apart from the lbw, they were all quite wide of the stumps.

[Pies4shaw]

England 9/353. Buttler out for 43. I’d say the par score on this pitch is in excess of 700.

[Pies4shaw]

England all out for 353. Wagner finished with 3 wickets, which surprises me a little because he seemed to be bowling rubbish for the most part.

[Pies4shaw]

NZ is 4/144 at Stumps. They’ll probably avoid the follow on. Ten needed.

[Pies4shaw]

NZ avoided the follow on. They are presently 5/219. The new ball, though, is 2 overs away. The next hour will be critical - if they get through it, they could get close to England's first innings of 353 but there is a risk they'll get bundled out, too and trail by 100 or more.

[Pies4shaw]

So, NZ did well in that critical stretch. They are now 5/315. Partnership is 118.

In fact, 5/316 at tea. 0/92 that session. ESPN says “this pitch is docile”. I stand by my observation that the par scor is about 700, so now NZ have got through the new ball, the could build a substantial lead. They don’t have any fantastic Test batsmen left (or, frankly, at all) but then the ball is coming off the pitch like a beach ball.