Mark Butcher look at the problems facing an England Test team struggling for results, ahead of their second Test against New Zealand (2:12)
Tea England 150 for 5 (Stokes 25*, Bairstow 30*) v New Zealand
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
First the good news for England’s beleaguered Test cricketers. After losing the toss and being made to bat first for the second time in this two-Test series, they laid the ghosts of their humiliating 58-all-out in Auckland last week, by more than doubling that total in the space of two sessions on the first day at Hagley Oval in Christchurch.
The bad news, however, was that they lost five wickets in the process, amid a continuation of some wearyingly familiar problems in their malfunctioning batting order.
By tea, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes had repaired a measure of that damage in a sixth-wicket stand of 56. But with Stuart Broad slated to appear at No. 8, following the dropping of two stalwarts of their lower-middle order in Moeen Ali and Chris Woakes, England’s first innings already appeared to be fatally wounded.
The manner in which those wounds were inflicted was especially galling. First up, Alastair Cook’s dead-horse form was given another flogging by the left-arm seam of Trent Boult, as he lost his off stump in the third over of the morning to depart for 2, his third single-figure score in as many innings in this series.
And then James Vince – recalled at No. 3 to shore up the batting in the absence of the dropped Moeen Ali – was pinned lbw for 18, a self-parody of an innings that featured three sumptuous boundaries, the like of which can make even his fiercest critics purr, and a successful review for a catch at slip, as Colin de Grandhomme’s canny medium-pace caused problems from the outset.
A third-wicket stand of 55 between Joe Root and Mark Stoneman appeared to have stopped the rot as England went to lunch on a stable 70 for 2, but then – not entirely out of the blue, but certainly without the air-raid-siren warning of their Auckland meltdown – England contrived to ship their next three wickets for a solitary run in the space of nine deliveries to plunge themselves back into crisis at 94 for 5.
Joe Root, as so often, was the cause of both their serenity while he was at the crease, and their panic when he was gone. Root overcame a rocky start, which included a fourth-ball bouncer from Tim Southee that clanged into the badge of his helmet, to ease along to 37 with five pleasingly crisp boundaries, the pick of which was a pearling on-drive from Southee that looked set to click him into a higher gear.
Instead, it was the direct cause of his downfall. One delivery later, Root lined up a similar shot, but was utterly suckered by Southee’s ‘three-quarter’ ball, one that gripped from just back of a length, seamed through a wide and gaping gate, and flattened his off stump via a deflection off the back pad.
Root, not for the first time this winter, looked crestfallen as he left, knowing that he had fallen short of both his own and his team’s expectations. And the consequences would prove dramatic. Five balls and one run later, Boult was back into the action, as Dawid Malan faced up to his first delivery of the match, failed to get his feet moving, and was pinned plumb in front of middle by a full-length seamer that jagged back into his pads.
And before England had rediscovered their bearings, their anchorman was dragged from the crease as well. Mark Stoneman had survived a torrid first hour, including an inside-edged four to get off the mark against Southee, and was beginning to find his fluency when Southee turned him inside-out with another perfect seamer, which nibbled half a bat’s width from just back of a length, and fizzed off the edge into the safe hands of Tom Latham at second slip.
It was another infuriatingly half-formed effort from Stoneman, a player who looks to have the temperament to be the rock at the top of the order that Cook, on current form, can no longer be, but whose scores are consistently falling short of matching those impressions. He’s made just four single-figure scores in 17 visits to the crease in Tests, but also reached four half-centuries with a best of 56. Today’s 35 was typically middle-of-the-road.
The same can also be said of Vince, whose eventual departure for 18, trapped on the crease by a full-length inswinger from Southee and failing with a review on umpire’s call, left his Test average after 21 innings at a distinctly average 22.47 – a similarly accurate reflection of a career in which he has rarely failed to make a start, but has gone on to reach a half-century on just two occasions.
But perhaps even more troublingly, Cook has an almost recent identical record to Vince’s: two fifty-plus scores in his last 20 Test innings. Admittedly, in his case, those two scores have been the small matter of 243 against West Indies at Edgbaston and 244 not out against Australia at Melbourne. Those innings point to his enduring class, and his enduring ability to make a start count.
However, those starts have been fewer and further between for Cook, and he never looked likely to bed in here. He survived a tight appeal from Southee’s first delivery, which struck the pad on the line of leg stump but would have be going over, but with his footwork tentative, he was a sitting duck for Boult’s pace and seam movement.
The legspinner Ish Sodhi was New Zealand’s solitary change from the first Test, in the wake of Todd Astle’s side strain. England handed a debut to the left-arm spinner Jack Leach, called up in place of Moeen and barely a year since his career had been at a crossroads after he was found to have a suspect action.
His turn will come later in the game, as will that of Mark Wood, whose extra pace has earned him a first Test call-up since South Africa’s tour of England in the summer of 2017.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo