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When earnest commentators stroke their bellies and wonder why New Zealand’s test record is the ugly sister of its ODI performances they could pick this test out of the bag as the perfect example of the Bracewell era in miniature. Dominant and disciplined for the first half of the test, before a mixture of jitters and tiredness takes over, before a final lame ending punctuated by misfields, dropped catches and spinners bowling no-balls. Perhaps the signs for all this were there to see on the second morning. New Zealand, working itself into a position of dominance, lost its two most experienced batsmen to run-outs you wouldn’t tolerate from 10 year-olds. And the fact that the toothless wonder was not coming out to replace them was an indication of the effect that injury was going to have on the match. Still, Taylor played his best innings yet, in building with a series of straight drives, before slipping into true IPL mode for the last half-hour and reducing Sidebottom to a surly bickering mess. Then when Vettori and the under-rated O’Brien ran through a disgracefully tentative England in the first innings, an upset seemed likely. Surely only Australia could lose a test after leading by close to 200? But then the wheels fell off. And when momentum changes in a match, the little things go with it. Flynn got all sick again and was not up to batting again; surely his tour is now over. Taufel may be rated the best umpire in the world, but his one bad decision in the game was to fire out NZ’s hero from the first innings. And Oram, who can sometimes come across as a bit soft picked up some mysterious injury which sent him to the margins for the rest of the match. So even when the improbable chase started, England had the upper hand. And by choosing to actually treat Vettori like a spinner who is strangely ineffective in the 4th innings of test matches, the game was theirs. In the end a 6 wicket win is a comfortable one, and Bell and Collingwood are likely to be retained for Trent Bridge. At least the complacency will return.
Results 1. Result. Cricket with Balls and Sport Review are to be commended for picking NZ here, and would’ve been banking the points at lunch on day 3. Sadly, test cricket is a 2 innings a side event, and everyone else picked up the points. 2. Number of changes in personnel from the 22 who played at Lords. Those ultra-competitive types like Miss Field and Republique Cricket who waited until the last minute before submitting their picks got wind of the Southee lavatory situation, and cashed in. Others to pick up points were Sportsfreak, Beer and Sport, Mike from MoC and King Cricket. 3. Eng top run scorer (match) Oh dear. Not only was Strauss the highest “English” scorer in the match, he was their highest scorer in each innings. He was also the highest scorer overall. The number of people who picked this? 0. 4. NZ top run scorer (match) This one ended up being a no contest; Bangalore’s Ross Taylor mixing his two types of game perfectly in the first innings before getting rifled in the second Well Pitched, Sportsfreak and Ben from MoC didn’t succumb to the mass infatuation with Jamie How and got this one right. At least no-one picked Daniel Flynn. 5. Who will bowl the most overs? Vettori bowled 66 overs. Next was Ian O’Brien (nobody picked him) with 43. All this helped by the fact that not only did England bat more overs, but Mills and Oram were passengers. Only Sportsfreak and King Cricket got the points here; most people went with Monty. 6. How many byes will Ambrose concede? (within 5 = 2 points, within 10 = 1 point) Somehow Fumbles managed to concede only 4 byes. Well Pitched, King Cricket, Mike from MoC and even Sport Review got full points here. 7. Take out Sidebottom: who will get the most wickets in the test? Monty took 7 off 39 overs, Vettori took 6 off 66. What’s the ECB’s solution to the fact that Monty can’t help taking wickets at Old Trafford? Strip them of tests for 3 years of course! In a reversal of question 5, most people picked Vettori to win this one; Well Pitched, King Cricket and Republique Cricket got the points. 8. Which non-keeper will take the most catches? Taylor caught 4, Collingwood took 2. Probably all those LBW decisions meant this was never going to be an English player. Sportsfreak, Cricket With Balls and even Sport Review got the points on this one. 9. What will Prince Brendan’s Strike Rate be for the test? (within 5 = 2 points, within 10 = 1 point) Just like the first test, Monty’s bunny finished with a match SR of 85, although some would argue that Mr. Taufel had a hand in the second dismissal. Well Pitched and Cricket with Balls got 2 points, and a handful picked up 1 point. 10. |
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