England dominate one innings to take the match

Match scorecard.

England have proved that it can take only one player across one innings to achieve victory. Broad's seven-for, career best for him and evidence that he is far more potent bowling full than he ever was as the imagined 'enforcer', took England home in one decisive innings in what was otherwise a relatively even conteat. Small battles, including a crucial half-century from the promising Root, Anderson's five-for, were won by England while others, Taylor and Williamson both scoring sixty-odd, and Southee taking ten for the match, were won by New Zealand. Honours very much even before that clutch-innings and Broad's performance.

That might worry England supporters, given the supposed disparity between these two sides on paper. Some might say: England victorious, New Zealand defeated, you can't get more of a disparity than that. While this is true to some extent, the question of how you win is equally important, particularly to a team using this series as a build up to an all-important Ashes contest. New Zealand are building a team too, after some internal fractures and the establishment of some new faces. They will be pleased with Williamson, the return of Taylor, and with Southee who is still a little wayward with the lines.

England still have niggles: Compton didn't dominate, and the top four all got bogged down by sensible bowling. A top Test batting line-up should look to take on good bowling as well as bad, and you cannot get so bogged down that you put too much pressure on the batsmen due in next. The counter-punch middle and lower order - Prior, Root et al. - can only take the attack to the enemy with expansive stroke play when a solid foundation has been laid. They are not as suited to playing the stodgy defensive game. England will look to work on their positivity.

But they don't need to work on their bowling attack. They might need to keep an eye on Broad to ensure that he stays full of length, and Finn needs to find his rhythm again after some run-up tinkering, but Anderson is firing nicely and deserved the rapturous applause when passing 300 wickets. Well done.

Both New Zealand and England fans might be full of the old 'I told you so' but England should not be complacent, and New Zealand should not be downhearted. England won the final innings squarely, and are the better team, but it was all even until then and the home fans sweated far more than the visitors.

England v New Zealand - First Test - Day Two

Live scorecard.

Well, it seems that I cannot predict anything. Prior going first ball is the complete antithesis of my entire pontification yesterday about arresting the slide with a gutsy, punchy counter-attacker like the England wicket-keeper. England a shade under 200 for six down. Perhaps it is Bairstow, the player I thought should have been excluded and Taylor given the chance. No doubt he'll prove me wrong with a seventy-odd.

It does seem to be the danger time this match, when the partnership approached forty-odd. Partnerships thus far have perished at 43, 24, 45, 45 and 35.

209/8, unimpressive score - do England struggle with the mental game? Are they being psyched-out by the idea of over-respecting New Zealand? The Kiwis have bowled tidily, to be sure, but we have faced down better opposition than this. Bairstow may pull something out of the bag, hopefully. Perhaps batting with the tail will break the shackles a little after lunch. And then we will break the back of the NZ batting order against the rocks of our superior (on paper) bowling attack.

Speaking of Bairstow, this will be a watershed moment for him. International cricket is often about temperament  and making a name for yourself when you are young. Crowd pleasing entertainment, positive mindset, and back-to-the-wall aggression would do nicely if where he bats currently in the order is to be a potential home roost for him.

All out for 232 in the end! We won't truly know how good a score that is until we see NZ bat. Will they get the jitters now that they are in control? Or will they play with some reckless abandon?

England v New Zealand - First Test - Day One

England 160/4 as of stumps - Day One. England won the toss and batting first.

Live scorecard.

I wonder if they've let this draw in New Zealand go to their heads, just like they so often let everything go to their heads. Over-confident following a pre-tour round of New Zealand minnow-bashing in the press, and now that the media have slated England as over-confident, they've developed a super cautious mode that means they're so stuck in the mud that they're immobile, while some canny New Zealand medium pacers with little Collywobble deliveries that are deadly against mentally distracted batsmen on cold English days, are chipping away at the wickets.

Another wicket goes down - Bell this time. Another pretty knock of thirty-odd before getting out. Fortunately for England - who remain the better team when they've got their heads screwed on, though the Kiwis are competitive - someone normally arrests the batting collapse. As with many landslides, an obdurate bit of scree with catch in the slope with a knock of seventy-odd to make it competitive. My bet is for Prior, who is a form player and unlikely to let a mental niggle get to him.

So England the nation curtails day one with a hint of rain, and England the cricket team finish a stodgy day where little moved, and four wickets were prized out of what has been thus far a dire match for free stroke-players  After making first incision through what is still a weaker spot for the host team: the second opening batsman after Cook, the Kiwis took advantage of the pressure-building batting styles of Cook and Trott - not the most explosive batting pair - to force mistakes when those same two players ended up trying to force the pace, a situation they forced upon themselves to some extent.

Taking nothing away from the New Zealand bowlers, who bowled tight, tidy full lengths if the lines were slightly wayward from Tim Southee.

But nevertheless, England's normal battle-plan of grinding out the runs from the top three before a free-scoring counter-punch from stroke-makers Bell and Prior has failed them somewhat today: Cook and Trott batted slowly, defensively, until it came to the point that they had to force the pace just to feel comfortable. And with some tight, tidy lines from the NZ bowling attack, this proved difficult and brought about their downfall.

That Root is still there suggests some mental gumption, which will be needed tomorrow. Bairstow is still to some extent an unknown factor. We will have to wait to see more of him before we rate his approach - though I still think James Taylor should have got the nod ahead of him.

Prior is still to come, as I mentioned earlier. England's form player with the bat and form player with the mind also, hopefully he will be the batsman who gets stuck in to arrest any slide. But the verdict from Day One remains that New Zealand are not a team to underestimate, but England are under-performing more than the tourists are over-performing.

Day Two awaits.

I reckon we've got something good here in this Ian Botham fellow

No doubt the day that English cricket licked its lips, June 19, 1978 at the end of the second Test of the England versus Pakistan Test series. Played at Lord's, Ian Botham presided over an innings victory with a century and a second innings 8/34 to help the hosts stomp out the tourists' fire. It was Ian Botham's seventh Test match, and his mind-numbing statistical achievement lies in the disparity between his monumental batting and the savagery of his bowling: he would reach his statistical zenith with the bat come the end of the match, and 8/34 would remain his career-best bowling figures. At the end of this, his seventh Test, his batting average would be 55.62, with three centuries in nine innings. He had scored his first century against New Zealand that February, and this third knock of 108 at the Lord's Test against Pakistan was his second consecutive hundred, having scored a ton against the touring Pakistan side in Birmingham the Test before.

With the ball he had scalped thirty-six batsmen in those seven Tests, with five five-wicket hauls, at a throat-cutting average of 18.41. What is more impressive is that the first wicket of his 8-fer was only his second in the series, having gone wicket-less in the first Lord's innings and taken only one at Birmingham. He had securing two five-fors against New Zealand in the spring. His bowling average would only ever be better than this watershed figure of 18.41 once, briefly, between the first and second Tests of that earlier New Zealand tour. 

While his bowling would become slightly more human in time and with age, as would his batting (he always seems to consider himself a bowler, not an all-rounder, and by the strictest definition he is a bowling all-rounder) that peak of performance in only his seventh Test must have had English cricket fawning over him. Wisden certainly did: "There had never been an all-round performance like Botham's in a Test match," the said. Three years later, in 1981, they said it again.

C. J. L. R.

Christopher John Llewellyn Rogers may prove a poison chalice of selection. No matter how he performs he may not be able to save Australia, but he may be the man that decides whether this Australian team falls with a cry or with a whimper. His selection will be either a coup for the Australian Cricket Board, or an embarrassing last-ditch gamble. But either way, the team may be doomed to failure.

Success for the left-hander may serve only to say: congratulations, Australia, you can't build a team for the future but well done for finding a thirty-five year old player who'll give you about half-a-season of solid Test spectacle before you wind up with no one left to select. Rogers may stall the fall, but any form he finds may serve only to emphasise how little the Aussies have left in their cupboard. Falling back on a county stalwart highlights how grim the future pickings look.

If he fails, Rogers' selection will serve as nothing more than another reminder that the glory days of the Australian cricket team are in the rear-view mirror at the moment, and perhaps it will highlight this even more painfully as Rogers' is one of the final figures of that bygone era - a player good enough for any other international team but not good enough for Australia. What a great team it was that kept players like Rogers, Lehmann, Law and MacGill out of serious contention. The fact that so many excellent cricketers were unable to forge long careers in the international scene was one of the most celebrated things about the Great Australia. But now that era is over, and Australia are simply a 'okay' team playing in an arena of 'okay' teams, a few 'good' teams and one sensational South African side.

But I'll look forward to him bat nonetheless. If only because I will enjoy the idea of Rogers batting well, and thus getting one-up over those selectors that until how overlooked him, or had no need for him. And as an Englishman, I'll forever bask in the sunshine of Australian fallibility - I grew up with an England team who were all too familiar with frailty and Australian Pom-bashing.

IPL Commentary - the real reason

Joe Root seems to have taken his elevation well....

.... 49, 482, 236, 18, 135 not out! I still feel reluctant to compare him with Michael Vaughan, because that just smacks of too hasty a judgement on his ability. He's only twenty-two. But he does have that slender frame and reliance on precision shots over strength.

Comparisons with Boycott might be a bit much, though the element of punching above your technical ability might ring true on occasion (and that's a compliment, not a criticism, of both players).

We will see what kind of a shout he gets against the Kiwis. He ought to slot in ahead of Bairstow if England are serious about giving him a long chance in the Test team.