***Official*** England in New Zealand 2018

[The Hutt Rec]

Is there anyone better than Nicols in domestic cricket?

We need someone who can score tough runs and not once in a blue moon to save his spot.

Pity you weren’t able to catch any of the first test, he batted awesome in that.

 

[Meridio]

Looks like Anderson is getting a touch of reverse swing. England clearly ball tampering, match should be abandoned

 

[NZTailender]

I don't see us walking out of this one with a draw unless rain magically turns up.

I guess this won't be the tour when we finally get a series win over England.

That said, England have played very well this game. Batted well and have bowled superbly. Have used the pitch much better than us, and are getting the ball to talk. They deserve to win.

 

[91Jmay]

Leach is threatening here.

 

[Flametree]

123for5 is beckoning isn't it?

 

[_Ed_]

Haha, wow. I thought it was not out live, but that was much worse than I thought.

 

[NZTailender]

Leach looks like he would be effective in the SC

 

[wellAlbidarned]

Take a drink every time a commentator says Latham is a good player of spin

 

[Prince EWS]

Take a drink every time a commentator says Latham is a good player of spin

It's only 10am here. You monster.

 

[thierry henry]

Regarding the post- daylight savings scheduling- I'm no expert on Christchurch weather but it certainly isn't getting dark by 4:30pm in Auckland and generally speaking it's not known to get dark early in NZ. This time of year it's more like 7pm before and 6pm after (actually more like 7:30 and 6:30 but I am allowing for the fact that good light is required for international cricket, rather than the marginal light I've had to battle playing 8-a-side twilight cricket).

Also, the obvious flipside to this is that the sun is currently coming up at about 6:30am and it's incomprehensible to me that they couldn't schedule a 10am start, given it's exactly what 11am was at the start of the test?

Just seems like odd weather and a lack of flexibility to me. At this time of year most of NZ has plenty of daylight hours. Or maybe it's just a case of "get a climate Christchurch". Easily could have played a day test here in Auckland on these days.

 

[Meridio]

I don't think you can play the 'get a climate' card here, given that this test has had 5 days of stunning weather. It's just dumb, inflexible scheduling and playing regulations.

 

[straw man]

Basically just #CricketThings

 

[straw man]

I was going to make a crack about England being able to rely on Latham to give it away in the 60s or 70s, but I checked and he actually has 6 centuries to go with his 13 fifties. That's not a bad conversion rate really.

 

[Chewie]

Made it to lunch and escaped 123/5

 

[BeeGee]

I'm looking forward to bad light ending play with NZ nine wickets down.

 

[Meridio]

As pointed out ad nauseum, Wood became a lot better than he is in the eyes of the public by virtue of not playing. Has looked thoroughly unthreatening in comparison to Anderson/Broad.

Off to bed now, I make it 80% England win, 20% draw. 60 overs scheduled, they'll probably only get 50 of them but England really only one key wicket away.

 

[Bahnz]

I was going to make a crack about England being able to rely on Latham to give it away in the 60s or 70s, but I checked and he actually has 6 centuries to go with his 13 fifties. That's not a bad conversion rate really.

Tbf, of his 6 hundreds, 2 have come v Zim, 1 v Bangladesh and another was a 2nd innings down-hill skying hundy against Sri Lanka after we'd already built up a sizeable 1st innings lead. Maybe it's doing him a disservice to completely discount the Bangladesh and SRL 100's, but it's still true that the only time he went big in seriously challenging circumstances was his opening 2 hundreds v Pakistan back in 2014. If he could bat us to a draw today, it would be his best test innings by miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles. But oof, relying on Latham to bat you to safety doesn't exactly fill the heart with confidence.

 

[Bahnz]

Regarding the post- daylight savings scheduling- I'm no expert on Christchurch weather but it certainly isn't getting dark by 4:30pm in Auckland and generally speaking it's not known to get dark early in NZ. This time of year it's more like 7pm before and 6pm after (actually more like 7:30 and 6:30 but I am allowing for the fact that good light is required for international cricket, rather than the marginal light I've had to battle playing 8-a-side twilight cricket).

Also, the obvious flipside to this is that the sun is currently coming up at about 6:30am and it's incomprehensible to me that they couldn't schedule a 10am start, given it's exactly what 11am was at the start of the test?

Just seems like odd weather and a lack of flexibility to me. At this time of year most of NZ has plenty of daylight hours. Or maybe it's just a case of "get a climate Christchurch". Easily could have played a day test here in Auckland on these days.

Judging by day 3, sunset starts at pretty much bang-on 6 in Christchurch, which means that having a scheduled close of 5:30 was always pushing it. There was only some very light whispy cloud on Sunday and the umpires still took the players off at 5:45.

 

[Shri]

We are not winning a test in england this year, are we?

 

[straw man]

Tbf, of his 6 hundreds, 2 have come v Zim, 1 v Bangladesh and another was a 2nd innings down-hill skying hundy against Sri Lanka after we'd already built up a sizeable 1st innings lead. Maybe it's doing him a disservice to completely discount the Bangladesh and SRL 100's, but it's still true that the only time he went big in seriously challenging circumstances was his opening 2 hundreds v Pakistan back in 2014. If he could bat us to a draw today, it would be his best test innings by miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles. But oof, relying on Latham to bat you to safety doesn't exactly fill the heart with confidence.

Hrmm, that must be why I didn't remember him having that many hundreds, especially the Zim ones.

Quite possible to get a hundred today and not have much impact on the result as well. A 150 and/or batting well into the final session however...