*Official* 2022 New Zealand Tour of England, Ireland, Scotland & Netherlands

[Jezroy]

Wow that was impressive to wake up to.

Blundell especially needed this imo. Quiet home summer with the bat and a few dropped catches to boot.

Leach's concussion unexpectedly benefits England at next fall of wicket - Parkinson is kryponite for CdG with that legspin.

I think this is good for Blundell as well - but in amongst a pretty average home summer for NZ, he surprisingly got 214 runs at 35.66. I thought it had been worse till I checked the numbers.

 

[Jezroy]

Urgh… the weather does look pretty rubbish for the next few days.

So… what do they do with this batting order? Do they keep going with Young opening? Swap him with Conway? Having Latham and Kane double fail hasn’t helped how bad it’s looked.

They can’t really drop Mitchell after this. Plus… Have they moved on from Wags?

How does this look? Still feel like 8 and 9 are one too high, but can’t do much about it.

Latham
Conway
Williamson
Nicholls
Mitchell
Blundell
CDG
Jameson
Southee
Patel
Boult

Young as back up (he did well against Bangladesh, and in the ODIs vs Netherlands, but the last 3 tests against stronger opposition have been a tough watch).

Then with Wags and Henry on the sidelines, the bowling side of things is still pretty well catered for. It’s a shame they can’t give Henry more game time at the moment, but they aren’t moving on from Boult and Southee any time soon. Henry is 30 now, but because of the relatively good record of Southee and Boult to stay fit, and the amount of tests we play…he’s not going to play a lot.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Great score to see this morning. Obviously they need to get their 100s and see off the new ball. Hopefully one of them gets a daddy 100 and the big hitters coming in score some runs like the 1st innings.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

This innings was apparently the 8th time in two and a half years that England have lost 10 wickets for 85 or less. I thought it was more than that.

 

[Burgey]

Haha he's definitely fun. Soooo slow through the air, but bowls jaffas. Not sure if it's going to work out for him in Tests but it's going to be fun either way.

I don’t think he turns his stock ball enough to consistently take wickets at test level. Then again it was only day two.

Absolutely wrapt for my man Daryl Mitchell. Bloke is prepared to bat anywhere in the line up and busts his arse to do the job asked of him as well as he can. What a contribution here when his side was in the complete ****.

 

[Athlai]

Mitchell has big Grant Elliot energy

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Just a natural symptom of the South African work ethic.

 

[Athlai]

Just a natural symptom of the Kiwi work ethic.

Fixed

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Okay, so it's approaching midnight here and I'm off to bed. The question is, how long would I have to sleep in order to wake up to good news about English cricket.

 

[Starfighter]

Okay, so it's approaching midnight here and I'm off to bed. The question is, how long would I have to sleep in order to wake up to good news about English cricket.

Twenty years

 

[Burgey]

Urgh… the weather does look pretty rubbish for the next few days.

So… what do they do with this batting order? Do they keep going with Young opening? Swap him with Conway? Having Latham and Kane double fail hasn’t helped how bad it’s looked.

They can’t really drop Mitchell after this. Plus… Have they moved on from Wags?

How does this look? Still feel like 8 and 9 are one too high, but can’t do much about it.

Latham
Conway
Williamson
Nicholls
Mitchell
Blundell
CDG
Jameson
Southee
Patel
Boult

Young as back up (he did well against Bangladesh, and in the ODIs vs Netherlands, but the last 3 tests against stronger opposition have been a tough watch).

Then with Wags and Henry on the sidelines, the bowling side of things is still pretty well catered for. It’s a shame they can’t give Henry more game time at the moment, but they aren’t moving on from Boult and Southee any time soon. Henry is 30 now, but because of the relatively good record of Southee and Boult to stay fit, and the amount of tests we play…he’s not going to play a lot.

Why wouldn’t you play Mitchell as an opener and keep Conway at four?

As for the bowling, tbf England is almost perfect for Southee and Boult’s MO. Shame Wagner in particular is injured,

 

[Flem274*]

Why wouldn’t you play Mitchell as an opener and keep Conway at four?

As for the bowling, tbf England is almost perfect for Southee and Boult’s MO. Shame Wagner in particular is injured,

Wagners fit, just dropped/not selected. Apparently bowling pretty floaty in warm ups.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Ben Stokes’s biggest flaw of the day was not giving the ball to Zak Crawley

 

[straw man]

Great to see the two most criticised batsmen in the NZ lineup come through after the thoroughbreds in the top order failed. They both had to work extremely hard to get in and required a little luck, but watching the third session replay now, both grew in confidence and are always willing to score from the bad balls.

And yes, it might sound concerningly similar to the talk of KP and Barry Maximums, but I do love that Mitchell is #proactive and will walk up and down the crease to upset the bowlers' lengths, in conditions where he would otherwise get exposed on offstump and edge behind fairly quickly.

 

[Bahnz]

Englands bowlers still struggle once the pitches get flat and they have to grind it out for their wickets. Teams like India, Australia, New Zealand are much better at this, while England always seem to go to Stokes or their main spinner or Root without much effect these days and wait for that new ball.

They really miss guys like Archer and Wood being in the team and fit cause once the swing and movement goes they really struggle.

Good Skyliner bait this.

 

[Bahnz]

Urgh… the weather does look pretty rubbish for the next few days.

Forecast tomorrow is just for a lot of cloud, which suits NZ down to the ground. Bit of morning rain scheduled for Sunday, but Monday it's back to being overcast with a chance of an evening shower. If the forecast holds true (and given how good the drainage is at Lords) there'll definitely be enough time for a result.

London (Greater London) weather - Met Office

 

[straw man]

So… what do they do with this batting order? Do they keep going with Young opening? Swap him with Conway? Having Latham and Kane double fail hasn’t helped how bad it’s looked.

They can’t really drop Mitchell after this.

Going back to the Young opening conversation, it sucks for him but it's not exactly a mystery why he's ended up there. We play the allrounder in CDG and Williamson's at 3, so there are only spots 4 and 5 to fit in Conway, Nicholls, Young, Mitchell and now apparently M Bracewell. Someone goes to open and a couple miss out.

The only genuine alternative I see to Young opening would be to put Conway back there. Do you put your better batsman in their best position and fit others around in their less favoured position (opener) where they will struggle, or do you damage your better batsman's chances in the less preferred position to improve the output of someone else? It's gotta be a question as old as cricket.

Still want Rachin to open longer term, but last season wasn't great and you would never give him his opener debut in England anyway.

 

[TheBrand]

Great news to wake up to this morning.

Daryl Mitchell could literally win us a World Cup and I still wouldn't rate him. hahahaha.

 

[jcas0167]

Great to see the two most criticised batsmen in the NZ lineup come through after the thoroughbreds in the top order failed. They both had to work extremely hard to get in and required a little luck, but watching the third session replay now, both grew in confidence and are always willing to score from the bad balls.

And yes, it might sound concerningly similar to the talk of KP and Barry Maximums, but I do love that Mitchell is #proactive and will walk up and down the crease to upset the bowlers' lengths, in conditions where he would otherwise get exposed on offstump and edge behind fairly quickly.

KP was indeed praising Mitchell for walking down the wicket, saying you can do against bowlers of this pace, but I think he did it against Wood last year too.

Mitchell trivia - when his dad was coaching the Western Force he played in the same club team as Justin Langer. Credits some of his development to that experience.

Growing up on rugby circuit, how Daryl Mitchell became a world class cricketer

Mitchell, on Wednesday, made his cricketing journey more rewarding by guiding New Zealand to the World T20 final. His 47 ball 72 and his late six hitting steak gave him the Man of the Match award.

indianexpress.com

 

[Bahnz]

Thought Anderson was starting to look pretty tired in his final spell yesterday. That first hour is crucial. Breakthrough, and England still have a strong chance of keeping the target to under 300. But if Mitchell and Blundell survive, a 400+ target starts looking like a real possibility.