**Official** England in New Zealand

[BoyBrumby]

Jaffa. Duck for Bell.

 

[Richard]

Goooooooonnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

Well bowled James Anderson, exactly the start he needed. Magnificent delivery.

 

[Dick Rockett]

****!

 

[NZTailender]

At this stage you'd be perfectly right, unless the pressure of the spinners had built up to a boiling point and caused an English Meltdown, I would think they would be batting still till the first session. I do think though come the second innings, we will be missing Patel.

Except the possibility that Patel might've been effective in a second innings if this wicket becomes a turner is negated by the fact that in the first innings he wouldn't have gotten much help at all, and England would've possibly scored more, thus making his job harder in the potential second innings we're talking about. But we're getting into a whole lot of ifs and buts and whatnot but I maintain that two spinners on this pitch would've been about as effective as trying to stop a stampede of elephants by waving a twig at them.


Bell gone to a beauty from Anderson. Goughy's fear might become reality.

 

[Richard]

That's true, but neither here nor there really. Actually I remember once hearing that a very highly rated bowler had an unusually high number of tailenders in his wicket tally, but I can't remember who. McGrath maybe?

Wasim Akram would be my guess.

TBH, if someone has half or more of their wickets as tailenders I'm dubious of the worth of it. Anyway, as I say, Gillespie bowled decently. Not probably the place to argue this otherwise.

 

[Richard]

Good to see Flem (not Phlegm) get a good reception.

Still haven't seen Heath BTW. You planning on meeting him later John?

 

[andruid]

Anderson cleans Bell up

 

[BoyBrumby]

Ha, ha. How very keen to get off strike there.

 

[Pratters]

LOL @ Ian Smith rolling out the hatrick stats. He sounds a bewildered man.

 

[NZTailender]

I would like to go on record in saying that tail end wickets are more valueable these days then they were, say, 15 years ago. We've seen a lot of dogged tail end resistence recently and I don't think because Gillespie took 2 tailenders in his 4 wickets should count against him. Like I said, somebody had to get them. To win a match, you need to take 20 wickets. Out of those 20, 8 are (probably) going to be tailenders, and have to be taken. If a bowler happens to take all those 8 in a match, while the other 12 are shared over 3-4 bowlers, I would'nt say the guy who got the tailenders bowled the best, but he certainly did his job and definitely shouldn't count against him.


But that's all obvious, innit?

 

[Richard]

Sidebottom and MSP are more of the "traditional" tail-end types.

I'm not counting someone like Stuart Broad as a "tailender".

 

[Athlai]

Bell. Three more chances to get a score.

 

[NZTailender]

It's interesting to note that in some (nearly all) of the wickets that have been bowled in this match, the batsman has been too early in playing a shot.

 

[Richard]

Bell. Three more chances to get a score.

Can't really blame Bell too much today TBH.

 

[NZTailender]

Sidebottom and MSP are more of the "traditional" tail-end types.

I'm not counting someone like Stuart Broad as a "tailender".

Slightly harsh on Sidebottom. He's not an out and out rabbit, but he's obviously no Brett Lee. Can stick around and grind out a few runs from time to time.

 

[Athlai]

That may be but openers should be prepared for dangerous balls, and he does need at least one score this series.

 

[Richard]

If we can get Jamie How out before Lunch we're right in this.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Can't really blame Bell too much today TBH.

Played an awful shot & got nowhere near it. Probably wouldn't have mattered as the ball was that good, but he was in no position to play it anyway.

 

[Richard]

That may be but openers should be prepared for dangerous balls, and he does need at least one score this series.

Oh, true, but it's an occupational hazard. If you're going to pick opening-batsmen you've got to forgive them when they get balls like that. Don Bradman or George Headley would've been highly unlikely to have kept that out.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

12 different opening partnerships in New Zealand's last 21 Tests.

Think that must be a record of some kind.