Black to the Future (NZ story)

[_Ed_]

Decided to play a full-strength team for the tour game against Northants, who weren't very good.

Northants 83 (Mills 3-19, McKay 3-25, Oram 2-9, Franklin 2-30)
NZ 430-5 dec (Papps 176, Guptill 143, Vincent 55*, Louw 4-136)
Northants 164 (A.Crook 49*, Mills 6-26)

NZ won by an innings and 183 runs.

All over inside two days. Great to see Papps and Guptill get some runs (quite a few - 290 run partnership for the 1st wicket!), and Vincent did well in his first bat of the tour. Mills was outstanding with the ball.

 

[_Ed_]

England v New Zealand - Third Test, Trent Bridge

Several changes to the teams. For England Broad will replace Harmison, and Bell returns after the unsuccessful Collingwood-at-8 experiment. NZ bring in Vincent and McKay at the expense of Hay and Martin.

Cook
Strauss *
Pietersen
Bell
Shah
Vaughan
Prior +
Flintoff
Broad
Sidebottom
Hoggard

Papps
Guptill
Taylor
Fulton
Vincent
McCullum * +
Oram
Vettori
Franklin
Mills
McKay

New Zealand won the toss, and will bat first.

 

[_Ed_]

3rd Test
1st Day

New Zealand 264-9 (McCullum 131*, Papps 41, Broad 4-78, Sidebottom 2-49)

McCullum stars on first day

A sensational unbeaten 131 from New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum lit up Trent Bridge on a gloomy first day before rain brought an early end to play in the final session.

Early on it was all one-way traffic as England ripped through New Zealand's top order, reducing them to 103-6. Stuart Broad, who finished the day with four wickets in his return to Test cricket, was the chief destroyer and was ably supported by the star of the series Andrew Flintoff and the consistent Ryan Sidebottom.

But McCullum shifted the momentum towards the visitors in the second half of the day's play, smashing 131 of the 176 runs scored while he was in the middle. He faced just 158 balls, hitting 23 fours and one massive six.

Neither side really has any advantage going into tomorrow's second day, but if England allow McCullum to continue at this rate for much longer it could be a very different story.

Thoughts:
Special innings that. I just set him to six bars of aggression and hoped for the best, and that's exactly what I got! Not expecting to see us add many more runs with just the one wicket in hand, but from 103-6 I'm pretty happy with 264.

 

[_Ed_]

3rd Test
2nd Day

New Zealand 267 (McCullum 134*, Broad 4-78)
England 237 (Strauss 101, Vettori 4-56)
New Zealand 14-0

New Zealand lead by 44 runs.

NZ on top despite Strauss hundred

An excellent 101 from Andrew Strauss wasn't enough to stop New Zealand taking a 30-run first innings lead in the series decider at Trent Bridge.

Strauss received little support from his team-mates, standing helplessly at the other end as Daniel Vettori, Kyle Mills (2-49) and debutant Andrew McKay (2-43) ripped through the lineup.

New Zealand's openers comfortably survived the remaining three overs of the day.

Thoughts:
This is going really well, I'm starting to think a series win is a real possibility! McKay was fantastic in his first bowl at this level.

 

[_Ed_]

3rd Test
3rd Day

NZ 267
England 237
NZ 314 (McCullum 101*, Oram 74, Flintoff 3-70)
England 23-1 (Mills 1-12)

England set 345 after second McCullum century

New Zealand are on top of the Trent Bridge Test after Brendon McCullum followed up his first innings 134 with a brilliant unbeaten 101 to set England a tough target of 345.

Thoughts:
Wow, unbelievable stuff from McCullum. Talk about a captain leading from the front! Pretty confident about this series now. Brilliant. Guptill got a half-century too, great to see. Disappointing to have Fulton out injured for 11 weeks though, not sure who I'll replace him with in the ODIs.

 

[_Ed_]

We are the champions...

3rd Test
4th Day

New Zealand win series 2-1

Despite a fighting century from Ian Bell, England fell 43 runs short of their target of 345 to win the third and final Test, giving New Zealand a rare series win in the UK.

Series stats:

Batting:
B.McCullum 455 runs @ 151.67
J.Oram 307 @ 51.17
A.Flintoff 289 @ 57.80
K.Pietersen 234 @ 39.00
M.Vaughan 190 @ 31.67

Bowling:
A.Flintoff 22 wickets @ 14.18
D.Vettori 17 @ 21.47
K.Mills 16 @ 18.62
J.Oram 12 @ 27.25
R.Sidebottom 12 @ 31.58

Flintoff quite clearly the man of the series!

 

[Somerset]

Congrats!! Thats an excellent effort to win the series - particularly after losing the first test. Sensational batting from McCullum.

 

[_Ed_]

Thanks.

Pretty average buildup to the ODI series though...

New Zealand v Worcestershire:

NZ 262-6 (Guptill 116, Oram 63*, Magoffin 3-36)
Worcs 247 (Moore 98, Magoffin 41, Mills 3-48)

NZ won by 15 runs.

Close call! Awesome from Guptill though.

Twenty20:

England 143-8 (Bell 45, Shah 41, Vettori 3-23)
NZ 138-7 (Vincent 47*, Taylor 36, Broad 3-22)

England won by 5 runs.

I've never properly figured out Twenty20 batting in this.

 

[_Ed_]

England v New Zealand - 1st ODI, Chester-le-Street

Cook
Strauss *
Pietersen
Bell
Shah
Flintoff
Prior +
Broad
Sidebottom
Harmison
Anderson

Papps
Guptill
Taylor
Vincent
McCullum * +
Oram
Vettori
Franklin
Mills
Patel
Gillespie

New Zealand won the toss and will bat first.

 

[Athlai]

How about that?

 

[_Ed_]

A fair point, but he hasn't seemed to me to be that good in this game unfortunately. Highly unrealistic, I agree.

Might look at him for the next tour anyway though, these openers haven't exactly set the world on fire.

 

[_Ed_]

1st ODI

England win 1st ODI despite all-round Oram brilliance

England have taken a 1-0 lead in the 5-match ODI series against New Zealand after a comfortable 6-wicket win at Chester-le-Street. England were on top from the very beginning, with the wicket of Michael Papps in the first over and three further early wickets reducing New Zealand to 56-4. Jacob Oram did his best to turn things around with a blistering 84, but their total of 223-9 was never going to be enough.

Thoughts:
Bugger. Hope we can turn things around again.

 

[_Ed_]

England v New Zealand - 2nd ODI, Edgbaston

Both teams unchanged.

Cook
Strauss *
Pietersen
Bell
Shah
Flintoff
Prior +
Broad
Sidebottom
Harmison
Anderson

Papps
Guptill
Taylor
Vincent
McCullum * +
Oram
Vettori
Franklin
Mills
Patel
Gillespie

England won the toss and will bowl first.

 

[_Ed_]

2nd ODI

Mills brilliant as NZ win low-scorer

New Zealand successfully defended just 192 at Edgbaston to level the ODI series at 1-1, and it was all thanks to Kyle Mills. The Auckland bowler was instrumental in guiding New Zealand to an almost respectable score with his 33 in a partnership of 64 with James Franklin, and then ripped through England's batting order with 5-17 as the hosts were bowled out for 181.

Thoughts:
That was tremendous, but our batting is looking really ordinary at the moment. We're missing Fulton. Gillespie's not bowling that well either, think I'll replace him with McKay for the next ODI.

 

[Flem274*]

Whats up with Andy McKay, of all people, being good in this game?

Spose Bond is injured too? Or does the ICL exist in this game too?

 

[Athlai]

McCullum being captain is random, as is McKay over Southee etc. etc.

Still pretty gun though hope Jeets gets a run.

 

[_Ed_]

I chose McCullum as captain because I don't like bowlers being captain - they often seem to under-bowl themselves. Obviously not an issue in the game since I choose how much they bowl, but decided to pick a non-bowler anyway.

Yeah Bond was injured when I picked the squad so he missed out. Southee, like How, seems unrealistically bad in the game. Of course I could fix these things with the editor - have already played around with that a bit...expect a shock recall for Craig Spearman in the near future.

Myburgh is also likely to play for my team from his real-life qualification date of 2010. If I ever get that far...

 

[_Ed_]

3rd ODI, Bristol

NZ: McKay in for Gillespie
England: Hoggard in for Harmison

England won the toss and elected to bowl.

Vincent scores ton in comfortable Kiwi win

A run-a-ball 102 from Lou Vincent guided New Zealand to a good score of 234 on a tricky pitch, a score that proved too much for England as the visitors took a 2-1 lead in the 5-match series.

Again the majority of New Zealand's batting order fell apart (Papps 7, Guptill 23, McCullum 2, Oram 4) and England reduced them to 160-7. But a 71-run partnership between Aucklanders Vincent and Kyle Mills put the innings back on track, and Vincent brought up his fourth ODI century in the 47th over.

In response England started disastrously, reduced to 121-6 by debutant Andrew McKay (2-21), Oram (3-39) and Jeetan Patel (1-44). Matt Prior and Stuart Broad then put on 77 for the eighth wicket to give hope for England fans, but once that partnership was broken it was all over as Mills and James Franklin cleaned up the tail.

 

[Athlai]

Jeets

 

[NZTailender]

Just confirming that Vincent is a God.