Trent Boult ends England innings with first ball of morning to set up 1-0 win
New Zealand 388 (Young 82, Conway 80, Taylor 80, Broad 4-48) and 41 for 2 (Latham 23*) beat England 303 (Lawrence 81*, Burns 81, Boult 4-85) and 122 (Wood 29, Wagner 3-18, Henry 3-36) by eight wickets
The man at the other end, James Anderson, was into the changing room and straight back out again, producing a maiden first up. He wasn’t going down without a fight, even with a target of 38 to defend.
With the visitors only needing 32 more for victory, it was all a bit of a moot point but England could rely on their two elder statesmen, who had bowled so well against stiff opposition in this match and who are consummate professionals, to keep competing to the last.
And they did, doing their best to make scoring slow-going for New Zealand but the tourists had all the time in the world, a tiny target and wickets in hand – everything – on their side.
It was England’s batters who had let them down, the second-innings capitulation for 122 could have been worse. They were 76 for 7 before an eighth-wicket stand worth 44 between Stone and Wood (who top-scored with 29).
Stone came into the attack in the 10th over of the morning and struck with his sixth ball. Having had a wider delivery punished to the fence by Will Young two balls prior, he had Young out chopping onto his stumps with just five runs needed.
The difference was that openers Rory Burns and Dom Sibley were dismissed for single figures in the second innings – Burns, England’s leading run-scorer for the series with 238 at 59.50, fell for a duck – exposing England’s middle-order frailties before tea on the third afternoon.
England’s fielding had been ragged too, with at least three missed opportunities on the third day on top of Zak Crawley’s low chance that didn’t go their way on the second, a moment that sparked more controversy over the on-field umpires’ soft-signal option.
It all left England needing with huge selection concerns ahead of the August Test series against India, even allowing for the return of such shoo-ins as Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler in that middle-order. It also left New Zealand with selection headaches of a different kind.
Valkerie Baynes is a general editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo