England vs New Zealand, First Test at Lords

First topic message reminder :

England: Cook (c), Compton, Trott, Bell, Root, Bairstow, Prior, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn.
NZ: Fulton, Rutherford, Williamson, Taylor, Brownlie, McCullum (c), BJ Watling, Southee, Wagner, Boult, Martin

England win the toss and will bat first

Much better this time around from England. 91/2 from 25 overs. For comparison, after 25 overs in the 1st innings, we were 48/1. Much better aggression this time around, we were far too respectful in the 1st innings.

Bit of a shaky session. Trott and Root steadying the ship a bit. Hopefully the 2 can put on 100 run partnership. Trott needs a big innings IMO.

91/2 at tea, lead of 116. Fantastic platform to get the lead up to 275, which I feel would be a winning lead.

Quite well placed at tea , as they were at lunch ... but it only takes a couple of wickets to change things...

Plenty of cricket left in this ...hope these two can push on. But it is late here so I'll leave it to the UK residents to keep the watch...goodnight all.

This could be a 43 over session, if the weather and the light holds.

Trott sends Root back once he's already halfway down the pitch, nearly a run out.

If I was Root I'd be giving Trott a right earful

Good grief - Root's a lucky lad there. Could have been run out.

Apart from that he's ticking along very nicely. Trott seems happy to drop anchor and let him get on with it.

Bit of a scare but all things considered England looking very good at the moment.

Shocking over rate today...both sides guilty of slow bowling. Wonder if there will be any penalties?

Trott just getting a little bogged down here.

Just needs to start ticking it over a bit more

Watling down injured, his knee came down very badly on that run out attempt.

Looks like McCullum is gonna have to keep

Cracking shot and a well played 50 for Root!

Joe Root batted well for his 50

Root and Trott currently doing there running for dummies series

Oh dear...Trott and Root not communicating well again and another near run-out.

Hope these two have a chat in the dressing room if they're still together at close of play.

The running is a bit dodgy, but England are rattling at a good pace. Good fifty for Root, he's put the Kiwis on the back foot, that lead should be over 200 by stumps.

Martin is being pelted for 3 an over this time around, that's double the rate of the 1st innings.

Well done Joe Root, the first of many 50's in test cricket i hope. Superb young player.

Him and Trott have done very well and victory is most certainly do able now!

100 partnership

I hope Captain Cook has had a look at the atrocious weather forecast for Monday, we should declare by no later than lunchtime tomorrow.

Good to see it, some proper application. Sun coming out makes a big difference too.

Good partnership so far from Trott and Root (apart from the running). I know bell is ill, but I actually like the look of Root at number 4 instead of bell. With bell at 4 the top 4 players just look too easy to contain and restrict.

NickisBHAFC wrote:Well done Joe Root, the first of many 50's in test cricket i hope. Superb young player.

Him and Trott have done very well and victory is most certainly do able now!

He made a 50 on debut in India but I know what you mean. Cracking player, looks like he has been in the team for years. Very similar to Cook when he came in.

Great century stand by Trott and Root. At this rate Bell won't need to bat, if he's meant to come in at No.7.

Eng now 150-2 (lead 175)

Reckon a lead of around 300 should be enough.

Well done root,


Good to see troitt in with his usual innings as well. This is leagues away from what we see in this position when its bell and trott.


Maybe a blessing in disguise!!

Nasir ruining Sir Beefy in the Box. Luving it!!

Aww...Root gone for 71. Shame he couldn't get the ton but well played.

50 up for Trott too. Think he'll need to take the lead role now.

Well Root's gone, fluent innings of 71 is a good knock though - in a low-scoring game like this, it could make all the difference. Keep going England.

On a separate note, I hope Ian Bell recovers otherwise Ravi Bopara might be in the team for the next test.

Maybe a good opportunity to give taylor another go if bell is ruled out of the next test.

LivinginItaly wrote:Maybe a good opportunity to give taylor another go if bell is ruled out of the next test.

I certainly hope so, but the selectors seem to have a soft spot for Ravi.

Bairstow gone, this counts as a bit of a wobble.

Uh-oh, Bairstow gone for just 5 - Southee strikes again!

England now 167-4 and suddenly things don't look quite so comfortable.

well played kiwis another wicket. but i am not bothered- I dont want see us bat untill tommorow lunch and then monday be a wash out!!!

Gah!

Prior caught for a duck and England have gone from 150-2 to 170-5 in fairly short order.

Typical England, doing their best to throw away a good position.

Finn needs to survive the last 15 minutes or so as night watchman.

Oh gawd, England have collapsed again. Come on England, 100 more runs.

Not Priors best test match

This has been a cracking Test match. Swinging one way and then then the other. A lead of 240/250 is what the neutral wants to see!

The brightside is England aren't too far off a position they'd consider very strong, with Andersons form, Broad and Finn bowling better today, and Swann coming into the picture.

Oh crap!

Trott bowled by Williamson and England now 171-6.

A batting collapse of truly English proportions. Ian Bell comes to the crease...alarming that we are depending on a sick player to save our innings.

Can someone please explain why James Taylor was discarded so soon and Bairstow keeps getting picked ahead of him?

Bairstow looks like a clown at Test level, he's had one good Test out of 7.

Taylor looked a very good player IMO

159/2 to 175/6. At least it isn't dull. But it is rather exhausting.

As for the Kiwis they should considered ditching Bruce Martin and bringing in Doug Bracewell.

Williamson often looks more threatening than Martin.

England end the day at 180-6. That collapse from 159-2 to 175-6 has made things even, after England dominated for much of the day. Another 60-70 runs, England should feel comfortable if the sun doesn't make much of an appearance. But if NZ could price out the remaining 4 wickets for less than 50 runs, they should be in with a very good chance to win.

Gerry SA wrote:Can someone please explain why James Taylor was discarded so soon and Bairstow keeps getting picked ahead of him?

Bairstow looks like a clown at Test level, he's had one good Test out of 7.

Taylor looked a very good player IMO

They made a mistake dropping Taylor so soon after his debut IMO. And I think they want to give Bairstow a proper run in the side before dropping him, which is fair enough. In addition, I think they see Taylor as more of a top order player as he is more of a grinder in the Cook/Compton/Trott mould whilst Bairstow is more likely to accelerate at 6. If KP isn't back for the Ashes and Bairstow doesn't get runs in the next Test then we have a problem. KP should be back though.

Agree with you about Bracewell for Martin too. His economy first up was down to England's poor batting rather than his good bowling.

Not a clue why Bairstow gets in ahead of Taylor unless we need a quota of 1 ginger and Collys retired

yeah i never got that either.

Taylor was the player that i wanted to see more off.

It looks like root doesnt even need to be bread in!

Taylor over Bairstow for me..

Superb innings from young Joe Root though. He, and the Bangladesh youngster Nasir Hossain are 2 young players in recent times who have impressed everyone right from the word go. Good effort from Trott as well. Tim Southee has really stuck to his task throughout the day and produced the results, and his late intervention has really brought things to an even point. Martin was taken on a bit more today and wasn't half as effective as he was in the first innings. Altogether, the positive approach serving England well generally. But they would hope Finn would be able to repeat some of his batting heroics from the last series, Bell could find some runs at an acceptable clip, and Swann and even Broad could produce some of those quality lower order batting performances.

JDizzle wrote:

Gerry SA wrote:Can someone please explain why James Taylor was discarded so soon and Bairstow keeps getting picked ahead of him?

Bairstow looks like a clown at Test level, he's had one good Test out of 7.

Taylor looked a very good player IMO

They made a mistake dropping Taylor so soon after his debut IMO. And I think they want to give Bairstow a proper run in the side before dropping him, which is fair enough. In addition, I think they see Taylor as more of a top order player as he is more of a grinder in the Cook/Compton/Trott mould whilst Bairstow is more likely to accelerate at 6. If KP isn't back for the Ashes and Bairstow doesn't get runs in the next Test then we have a problem. KP should be back though.

Agree with you about Bracewell for Martin too. His economy first up was down to England's poor batting rather than his good bowling.

I've got nothing against Bruce Martin, he worked 14 years to get into the Test side. But he's not Dan Vettori.

Bracewell offers something extra. More pace. Can bat down the order as well.

Martin hasn't been all that great today, but I don't think bringing Bracewell in would have made a world of difference. England learned from their mistakes and took Martin on a bit more and he'll have to make the adjustment, but a spinner always provides the side with a greater balance. Williamson was getting a few to turn significantly.

Martin too is a handy lower order bat.

msp83 wrote:Martin hasn't been all that great today, but I don't think bringing Bracewell in would have made a world of difference. England learned from their mistakes and took Martin on a bit more and he'll have to make the adjustment, but a spinner always provides the side with a greater balance. Williamson was getting a few to turn significantly.

Martin doesn't attack the stumps like a normal SLA spinner. He's too far outside off stump.

Bracewell gets good seam movement and bounce. Bracewell would've been tougher to score off.

Martin's methods worked alright against England in the last series. He managed to play on the usually patient England batsmen and induce a number of mistakes. The England batsmen had to face a lot of criticism for that in fact. Perhaps the first innings stranglehold that he had over their scoring could be explained by that. Besides, perhaps had the decision at the ooss gone a different way, England might have ended up bat last on this track that is offering some pretty decent turn already. Don't think 4 seamers and Williamson would have been enough. A team has to be arranged keeping in mind all these factors, and even South Africa of Steyn, Philander, Morkel, Kallis and the rest have to think long and hard about leaving out the spin option and even they go that way very rarely, and when they did that against Australia recently, the experience wasn't great at all. Australia in the 09 ashes, the only time when England didn't pick a fit Graeme Swann after he had become a regular, all indicate the problems of going in without a proper spin option.