Toss New Zealand chose to bowl vs England
Tom Latham chose to insert England on a “traditional”, green-tinged surface at Basin Reserve, as New Zealand looked to find a way back into the three-match series after going 1-0 down in Christchurch.
“Whether you win or lose you’re always looking to improve,” Latham said of how his side would respond to defeat. “The guys have worked hard the last couple of days, I don’t think we were too far away, the result may suggest so but we did some good stuff throughout that Test match. Another challenge this week, the guys are looking forward to it.”
Ben Stokes said that England were planning to bat regardless, as they did here in 2023 when losing by one run after making New Zealand follow on.
“I was very happy with how everyone went about the game last week, one of those real team efforts where everyone stood up at some point,” he said. “We had some outstanding individual performances in Harry Brook and Brydon Carse but when everyone is contributing you know you’ve had a good team performance.”
Both New Zealand and England had named unchanged XIs in advance, with Latham suggesting the hosts had enough part-time spin options if required. England stuck with the combination of Jacob Bethell at No. 3 and Ollie Pope keeping wicket, the seamers on both sides trusted to back up performances after a four-day turnaround between Tests.
New Zealand: 1 Tom Latham (capt), 2 Devon Conway, 3 Kane Williamson, 4 Rachin Ravindra, 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Tom Blundell (wk), 7 Glenn Phillips, 8 Nathan Smith, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Matt Henry, 11 Will O’Rourke
England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Jacob Bethell, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ollie Pope (wk), 7 Ben Stokes (capt), 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Gus Atkinson, 10 Brydon Carse, 11 Shoaib Bashir
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick
Source: ESPN Crickinfo