*Official* England in New Zealand 2019

[straw man]

Very annoying rain - England bowlers (exc woakes) have lots of overs in their legs and with Latham set and the ball old, the final session was cash in time, plus an easy introduction for Nicholls. Now their bowlers get to rest up instead.

173/3 is neither here nor there - can't do what England did first match and only score 350, as batting will only get easier.

 

[Daemon]

Root bowling, Stokes not fit, Archer bowling 130 KPH and Curran's floaty half volleys didn't bold well for the post-tea session. Thought Broad bowled ok upfront, but he averages close to 40 in the past 3 years away from home. He isn't going for many here, but you expect more than 2 wickets a game.

Solid colesy impression

 

[vcs]

Impressive from Latham. In terrific form ATM.

 

[Moss]

Caught up with the highlights, quality inning by Latham. That said about 60%+ runs on the leg side. Did England bowlers bowl all right, was there much in the pitch? Ross' LBW looked out but hey you also get given out wrongly at times so it evens out. Disappointed Woakes got King Kane out. Haven't watched him bat all day now for sometime. Big one around the corner surely. Although the score looks quite good sent in to bat still plenty of work needs to be done tomorrow.

Jeet Raval played a lose shot, the low scores may be on his mind. He just needs to bat as long as he can, he's certainly got to put away cover drives against this England side. They move the ball a bit also tall bowlers so get more bounce.

Based on what I watched till the lunch break, didn't look like England were bowling all that well to Latham but he seemed in excellent nick and was picking them off consistently on the leg side. Partly down to England not being consistently able to find a good line and length, but he definitely looked very much in the zone, in complete contrast to how he looked at the World Cup.

 

[Prince EWS]

Solid colesy impression

Sadly the age of autocorrect has given too many people plausible deniability about their Colesy impersonations.

 

[Mike5181]

phlegm on suicide watch.

 

[Flem274*]

stoked for him tbh. i wanted runs against pace attacks above shield standard in nz and he's delivered

 

[The Hutt Rec]

Jeet Raval played a lose shot, the low scores may be on his mind. He just needs to bat as long as he can, he's certainly got to put away cover drives against this England side. They move the ball a bit also tall bowlers so get more bounce.

It seems like he panics and plays those sorts of shots even when he has a good run of scores under his belt though. I remember him saying before his hundred last year that he needed to learn off Latham (once he got his 200) and stick to his game no matter the score. But he doesn’t seem to have taken his own advice.

 

[nzfan]

It seems like he panics and plays those sorts of shots even when he has a good run of scores under his belt though. I remember him saying before his hundred last year that he needed to learn off Latham (once he got his 200) and stick to his game no matter the score. But he doesn’t seem to have taken his own advice.

Seems like cut off between attacking or defending. In the past he defended for a long time and let the bowlers to bowl to him. Probably with the kind of pace Black Caps are setting in batting these days he's probably pressuring himself on trying to score quickly. Both at Mount and here he seemed at times bothered he's not scoring quickly enough.

You see someone like Taylor he just plays his shots at the start to get going and then settles down to play at his pace. Jeet Raval is good enough opener and probably since Richardson barring Latham of course he's the best we've had. He's got good couple of years or three in him. Hopefully he will come good in the second dig otherwise his spot in the side will open up and never good to go to Aussie with not much runs behind.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Nice to see England remind the world that they're a bog average test team

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Nice to see England remind the world that they're a bog average test team

The world didn't need reminding. Though I must admit the idiot team selection was comedy gold. If Stokes can't bowl again they'll probably pat themselves on the back for their foresight in picking 5 (yes 5 this is not a typing error) seamers.

 

[Woodster]

The composition of this England does indeed raise serious questions about the importance (or lack of) they have placed on this series and as a result we are unsurpisingly seeing another disjointed performance.

Archer looked flat in the morning session (not sure how he went in the afternoon session ?), it may just have been one of those days where things don't click and the best we can hope for is accuracy. What we need is for him to turn up first thing in the morning and show us the real Archer and if we can pick up a couple of early wickets we are still well in this Test match.

Broad was mopre threatening and Woakes bowled with some discipline, Curran I'm afraid delivered some nice floaty throwdowns, I still don't quite get Curran as a frontline bowler. We'll miss the specialist spinner I'm sure, but it does help out Pope not having to stand up to any proper spin bowling, as Pope is not a specalist wicket-keeper either.

Despite these issues, we can turn this Test around with the right attitude and some actual fire in our bellies!

 

[SteveNZ]

I have to admit I got something horribly wrong.

I said the Test Championship meant nothing, it was a waste of time.

But clearly it does mean something, to England at least. Otherwise why would they be picking five seamers, a non keeping keeper, not wanting to dig in to save the first Test, hardly bending their backs at the bowling crease etc? Just saving themselves for Tests that 'matter', it seems

 

[Woodster]

I have to admit I got something horribly wrong.

I said the Test Championship meant nothing, it was a waste of time.

But clearly it does mean something, to England at least. Otherwise why would they be picking five seamers, a non keeping keeper, not wanting to dig in to save the first Test, hardly bending their backs at the bowling crease etc? Just saving themselves for Tests that 'matter', it seems

It would be ridiculous if that was the case, but indications suggest that’s the rationale. I’m hoping an exuberant and impressive second day will dispel those theories.

 

[Frost]

stoked for him tbh. i wanted runs against pace attacks above shield standard in nz and he's delivered

Tbh, some domestic teams have a better bowling attack in these conditions.
I put more weight in his runs against WI and SL than this English attack.

 

[theegyptian]

I have to admit I got something horribly wrong.

I said the Test Championship meant nothing, it was a waste of time.

But clearly it does mean something, to England at least. Otherwise why would they be picking five seamers, a non keeping keeper, not wanting to dig in to save the first Test, hardly bending their backs at the bowling crease etc? Just saving themselves for Tests that 'matter', it seems

I mean NZ are the better team generally so whilst England haven't been that well prepared I doubt the results would have differed.

Having said that I don't think the two test match series helps. Especially for England who play regularly 4 and 5 match series, whether consciously or subconsciously this series might appear less important.

Certainly as a fan I really haven't cared much about this series. The fact that it's a 2 match series, the fact we had a test tour to NZ only 19 months ago, the fact it doesn't count for the test championship, the fact we are playing crap cricket so regularly.

Such a shame we couldn't have had one 4 match series rather than these two shite 2 match series.

 

[wpdavid]

Nice to see England remind the world that they're a bog average test team

We're not that good mate.

 

[Moss]

That might just reignite England now.

Top innings from Latham, but 182 for 4 with two new batsmen isn't ideal.

 

[Athlai]

Gotta feel the rain delay may have robbed us of 100 runs.

 

[TT Boy]

Credit for NZ sticking with Nicholls. Averaged only 31 after 14 tests with the 1 hundred, looked always good for a duck, but now has a test average at 45 with 5 hundreds.