**Official** New Zealand in England

[Beleg]

Panesar certainly didn't bowl as well as his figures suggest.

 

[Richard]

Hmm must be that time of year when teams hand Panesar obscene bowling figures. How's dismissal was the sort of crap WI were pulling when they were handing Panesar wickets. Marshall and McCullum - godawful shots. Vettori and Mills were more understandable but still poor. Taylor was unlucky obviously.

Yeah, and if they hadn't looked to play those shots they'd have been caught at the wicket and it'd have been "they should've gone after him, obviously, then he'd never have got the haul".

This is the sort of wicket where it's fairly obvious that good fingerspinners will get wickets whether you try to block or smash them.

 

[wpdavid]

To me now I think about it a little more, this bears some similarity to the situation at the end of the third day at The Oval in 1999 - ironically, the Test before Michael Vaughan made his debut. No real similarity to the rest of the match, but the end-of-day situations bear resemblence.

England needing something we all knew was pretty unlikely, but certainly not totally impossible, and in a not-completely-indecent position at the close.

Hopefully the outcome will be different this time. Our batting is certainly a bit deeper than on that occasion: five of the top six was strong (Atherton, Hussain, Stewart, Thorpe, Ramprakash) but the bottom five was very weak indeed (Irani, Caddick, Mullally, Tufnell, Giddins). Also, NZ's attack (Cairns, Nash, O'Connor, Vettori) was quite a bit stronger than the current one.

I suppose in 1999 Cairns' assault had given his side a psychological edge in the same way that Panesar's 6-for did today. In terms of bringing their sides back from the brink and making them think this just might be their game.

I can still see the parallels with Lord's 2000: imo 294 against Vettori on this track is roughly equivalent to 190odd against Ambrose & Walsh on that Lord's wicket.

 

[Richard]

I suppose in 1999 Cairns' assault had given his side a psychological edge in the same way that Panesar's 6-for did today. In terms of bringing their sides back from the brink and making them think this just might be their game.

Yeah, absolutely. Going into the fourth-innings', different teams had the momentum. I do wonder whether us ripping through their third-innings this game made some small impact on how poorly they bowled early on (far too wide enabling Strauss to leave).

I can still see the parallels with Lord's 2000: imo 294 against Vettori on this track is roughly equivalent to 190odd against Ambrose & Walsh on that Lord's wicket.

There's parrallels, but to me pretty much any Test will always be second-class compared to that, especially one where it's spin rather than seam which dominates. Eng vs WI Lord's 2000 is the greatest Test in history IMO.

 

[wpdavid]

Yeah, absolutely. Going into the fourth-innings', different teams had the momentum. I do wonder whether us ripping through their third-innings this game made some small impact on how poorly they bowled early on (far too wide enabling Strauss to leave).

Quite possibly. I think they'll start much better tomorrow though.

There's parrallels, but to me pretty much any Test will always be second-class compared to that, especially one where it's spin rather than seam which dominates. Eng vs WI Lord's 2000 is the greatest Test in history IMO.

There's big differences of course. Bowling a side out for 54 (is that right?) is exponentially more memorable than 114.

 

[Richard]

And what's more, after a disastrous start, we did an excellent demolition-job on their first-innings.

 

[Halfpast_Yellow]

So England need 294 to win. Still think NZ have the best chance, but would not be at all shocked to watch us **** this up and give England a gift.

AWTA

 

[Nutter]

Test cricket at its best: prospect of a result!

 

[steds]

I hope that Taylor bats at some point on Sunday.

Popping down to OT today. Hoping for bright skies and a Collingwood century.

1/3. And that wasn't for long. Most unsatisfactory. On the plus side, Vettori and Panesar bowled excellently, aided by two pathetic batting performances they may have been.

Ideally wanted to be 80-0 at close, but 76-1 is close enough I suppose. New Zealand are still odds on,mind. Need a big Pietersen knock or for Vaughan to go into 02/03 Ashes mode if we want to win.

 

[Richard]

Vaughan in 2007-onwards-middle-order form would do me fine TBH. I don't want him requiring let-offs to score more than 40, as he did in all 3 live Tests in Australia (getting 1 let-off) because NZ might very well not give him them.

 

[GIMH]

Ladbrokes have us at odds-on, interesting

 

[James]

Wow, going to be a very close finish but I'd rather be in England's position than New Zealand's position right now.

First session tomorrow is going to be very interesting.

 

[Blakey]

Definitely. NZ have just about thrown the game away. But that was to be expected. Right?

 

[Neil Pickup]

Hmm must be that time of year when teams hand Panesar obscene bowling figures. How's dismissal was the sort of crap WI were pulling when they were handing Panesar wickets. Marshall and McCullum - godawful shots. Vettori and Mills were more understandable but still poor. Taylor was unlucky obviously.

Scaly and Panesar = Richard and Harmison.

Is it that hard to be pleased that someone's taken six for squat?

 

[NZTailender]

It's NZ's match to lose.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Definitely. NZ have just about thrown the game away. But that was to be expected. Right?

Why such a downer? NZ are still in the box seat here. If O'Brien can keep up the standard he's bowled to so far, and Vettori can twirl away at the other end then all will be well. Martin and Mills need to up their game a little, but hopefully they'll be given a rocket and step up. Might see a few overs from Redmond as well, but certainly this game is still in NZ's hands at the moment.

 

[andruid]

What's the word on Oram? Can he bowl tomorrow?

 

[GIMH]

The different opinions as to who is in the better position are interesting. Looking at the recent form of our batting line-up, you would say NZ, you add Vettori's 1st innings performance and Panesar's 6-for and the odds stack even more towards our friends from the antipodes, yet I reckon I can rightly sleep confidently tonight, think Vaughan and Pietersen will step up for us, failing that a tense finish with Broad and Anderson there at the end and the match being tied.

 

[Raghav]

It's NZ's match to lose.

 

[James]

Taking picks for tomorrow people?

England to win by 3 wickets for me.