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

[NZTailender]

Surprised this is our highest total in England. Could've sworn we piled on 600 last tour or something

 

[NZTailender]

Also didn't realise with that innings Boult bow has the most test runs by a number 11. Wag

 

[Chubb]

Another classy and composed abject failure by the golden boy I see.

 

[honestbharani]

Wow.. amazing scorecard. Well played Darryll Mitchell and happy for Bundell. Neither comes across as the most talented batsmen around but both seem to have excellent attitudes towards the game. Good to see them succeed.

 

[tooextracool]

I don't think either Pope or Bairstow should be at three. The guy in that spot might come in on the second ball of a match. They need to have a tight technique and both are loose as hell. But then, that's not stopped Crawley cementing a place.

Bairstow has scored two recent hundreds, but his good scores are still likely to be as few and far between as Pope's. There's a case to say you should invest in the younger man, but I'm not sure Pope should be in the side tbh. I'm always of the mind that they want Bairstow (like Buttler) around as much as possible and as soon as Foakes hits a bad run of form with the bat, Jonny will get the gloves back. This pitch is flat - once you're in for 20-30 balls, you can book in for bed and breakfast. Pope has to cash in here. Bairstow too.

Who would you replace Pope with at 3? I don't think anyone is under any illusions that Pope is currently suited to bat at 3 (which to be honest is not shocking for someone who has always been a middle order batsman), but surely the goal of the experiment is to see whether with all of his talent he can figure out a way to get there eventually? Honestly, it's a pretty low risk experiment, if he fails, he will not do any worse than YJB/Malan/Denly/Lawrence/[insert name here] batting in the same position. The other issue I have with dropping Pope is that I cannot see a credible scenario for him to return to the side in the near term particularly with Brook now contending for the #5 spot and Root/Stokes being a lock for #4/#6, respectively. Going back to CC, he'll continue to conquer playing for Surrey (like has now for a few years) and won't get to face any credible spin threat on English pitches so we'll likely just be wasting someone who clearly has more potential than most players in the system.

 

[Shady Slim]

Another classy and composed abject failure by the golden boy I see.

nooo you dont understand though he just looks like hes a test cricketer!!

 

[Nintendo]

Pope definitely isn't a #3. I can see the logic of playing him at 3. You put your best batsman at his strongest position and the rest bat around him, essentially using the #3 as a jobber shield. I am not opposed to this idea as I thought Bairstow at 3 wasn't a bad idea. Moving Pope down the order again would require one of two things:

A) He replaces Bairstow and England to the Denly solution. Bring in Sibley/Burns/Vince/Compton/jobber of the week at 3.
B) Swap Bairstow and Pope.

Either would require long term faith in Pope and unwavering commitment to the idea that he's a long term test class batsman with at least more upside than YJB.

If Pope does go big here, will he have warranted this faith? I'm uncertain as scoring jammy runs on a flat track isn't supra-Bairstow returns. Yet I desperately want one of the only 3 young blokes (
Nissanka, Green being the others) who've dominated domestix to get into the team to do well.

I mean greens currently averaging 36/30 in tests after 12 games @23 and Nissanka is averaging 45 opening. Both of them are doing great.

 

[tooextracool]

To be fair to Zak in this innings, he did get a quality delivery. That said, I do feel like we regularly fall into this trap of expecting players to be better than their domestic records when in truth, the Vaughans and Trescothicks are statistical odd ball cases. More often than not players end up either mirroring or underperforming their domestic record at the international level (Buttler being a classic example). Zak clearly has plenty of class but if he's good enough, we'll see him score a mountain of runs at the FC level and then we won't be wasting our time with a middling cricketer.

 

[Bahnz]

Bit of a come down for Darryl after a great days work. Could’ve had Stokes and Root in before stumps. Hard days work ahead tomorrow.

 

[straw man]

Score woken up to: Mixed

Love 553 but a shame the centurions had to balance out their days (and England's earlier fielding generosity) with some of their own dropsies. Yes I'm giving the second on to Blundell - got caught flat-footed.

Need to make a whole lot more chances today and then take them.

 

[_Ed_]

Is there anything about Trent Bridge that could somehow make catching more difficult? Extraordinarily poor from both sides.

 

[grecian]

ESPNcricinfo's stats whizz Shiva Jayaraman has been badgering away: "In New Zealand's first innings here Anderson's three wickets came at 20.66 runs apiece, while the other England bowlers took seven wickets between them at 67.7. The other England bowlers averaged more than thrice what Anderson did in the innings. This is the eighth of his nine hauls of three or more wickets since January 2021, when Anderson has averaged less than one-third of the combined average of other England bowlers in the innings."

I kinda see why they want to drop him, does make the rest look a bit bad.

 

[Chubb]

I sound like a cricket Jacobin but I’m kind of done being fair to Crawley and the rest. Put up or get dropped.

 

[Daemon]

ESPNcricinfo's stats whizz Shiva Jayaraman has been badgering away: "In New Zealand's first innings here Anderson's three wickets came at 20.66 runs apiece, while the other England bowlers took seven wickets between them at 67.7. The other England bowlers averaged more than thrice what Anderson did in the innings. This is the eighth of his nine hauls of three or more wickets since January 2021, when Anderson has averaged less than one-third of the combined average of other England bowlers in the innings."

I kinda see why they want to drop him, does make the rest look a bit bad.

I like how this is sometimes spun in a negative way - oh Jimmy didn’t play for the team, just protected his average by trying to keep the runs down instead of being attacking.

 

[grecian]

I sound like a cricket Jacobin but I’m kind of done being fair to Crawley and the rest. Put up or get dropped.

He's not up to it, and compton is in unbeleivable form, honestly he's 3rd of the top 3 for Kent, that doesn't seem good enough to play for England.

 

[SteveNZ]

I like how this is sometimes spun in a negative way - oh Jimmy didn’t play for the team, just protected his average by trying to keep the runs down instead of being attacking.

To be fair, I've seen Anderson do this before. I'm an avid watcher of his career and at times I feel like he's bowled half a foot shorter than he should have, which felt like it was the desire to hit the keeper's gloves over pitching it up a bit, being prepared to be driven and nicking guys out. I'm not saying he does it often or all the time - 600+ wickets says otherwise - but certainly I reckon there's been too many days where he was happy with 2-60 off 35.

 

[grecian]

To be fair, I've seen Anderson do this before. I'm an avid watcher of his career and at times I feel like he's bowled half a foot shorter than he should have, which felt like it was the desire to hit the keeper's gloves over pitching it up a bit, being prepared to be driven and nicking guys out. I'm not saying he does it often or all the time - 600+ wickets says otherwise - but certainly I reckon there's been too many days where he was happy with 2-60 off 35.

He wasn't swinging it though, which was odd for him, Stokes swung it more, he generally tries to contain when he doesn't swing it, it's pretty legitimate IMHO.

 

[SteveNZ]

He wasn't swinging it though, which was odd for him, Stokes swung it more, he generally tries to contain when he doesn't swing it, it's pretty legitimate IMHO.

Nah I don't think this Test was an example at all. Anything full of a length is punishable by rights on this deck

 

[wpdavid]

This from Andy Bull in his write up for the Guardian last night.

By late Saturday morning it began to feel like England had Statler and Waldorf opening the bowling for them. Broad and Jimmy Anderson both stepped back from the attack after four overs apiece, and then spent a large part of the afternoon chasing the ball around and chuntering to each other, and everyone else, about the condition it was in.

Now I am aware that lots of people here won't remember Statler and Waldorf at all, but I did enjoy this piece, especially as England really have fielded like a bunch of muppets in this test.

 

[NZTailender]

This from Andy Bull in his write up for the Guardian last night.

By late Saturday morning it began to feel like England had Statler and Waldorf opening the bowling for them. Broad and Jimmy Anderson both stepped back from the attack after four overs apiece, and then spent a large part of the afternoon chasing the ball around and chuntering to each other, and everyone else, about the condition it was in.

Now I am aware that lots of people here won't remember Statler and Waldorf at all, but I did enjoy this piece, especially as England really have fielded like a bunch of muppets in this test.

Hey this English team ain't half bad

Nope, it's all bad!

Hohhohhohohohoho