England v New Zealand, First Test Lord's

So after all the drama and acrimony of the last couple of weeks, its time for the action to begin on the field. The first test of the English summer gets underway at the HQ from tomorrow. An upcoming New Zealand against an embattled England. But England are on home turf, New Zealand don't have a good record in England, most of their recent success has come at home, the core of their test side are just coming on the back of T-20 cricket at the IPL rather than much getting used to English conditions.
England on the other hand are without a coach and questions on Kevin Pietersen are going away nowhere. There are unsettled issues about the combination of the side, with the position of one of the openers, the 3rd seamer and the spinner being open questions.
Adam Lyth is likely to make his debut for England tomorrow, and there is a chance that Mark Wood might come in for Chris Jordan.
For New Zealand, it is being suggested that Matt Henry might get to debut and offer backup to Tim Southee and Trent Boult. Martin Guptill, on the back of a spectacular world cup and 150 in the warmup game is set to come back as test opener, and Corey Anderson, coming back from injury, is set to take the all-rounder position.
Set for some very interesting cricket.......

So if we do a quick man-to-man on form and overall quality.......
Cook- Latham Cook.
Lyth-Guptill Guptill (for his experience).
Ballance-Williamson Williamson.
Bell-Taylor Bell.
Root-McCullum Root.
Stokes-Anderson equal.
Buttler-Watling Watling.
Ali-Craig Craig, though not by much.
Broad-Boult Boult.
Wood-Henry equal
Anderson-Southee Anderson for his experience and he's playing at home.
So 4 England, 5 New Zealand and 2 equal.......

Cook
Latham
Williamson
Ballance
Root
Stokes
Watling
Moeen
Southee
Boult
Anderson

The great thing about that team is it has 5 Englishman, 5 Kiwis and Ben Stokes who is both!

Debuts for Lyth and Wood for England

NZ win the toss and insert England on a green pitch.

Glad to see Jordan out. We don't even pick our best keeper, so keeping him in because he's a good fielder makes no sense.

Good luck to the two debutants

Vaughan thinks Gillespie is nailed on

Happy with the changes to the team

Lyth didn't waste time getting off the mark !

Nice first over from Boult. Bit of seam movement.

I would have liked Jordan to have been given longer but understand the decision.

Oh, and I would have batted on winning the toss.

Stella wrote:Glad to see Jordan out. We don't even pick our best keeper, so keeping him in because he's a good fielder makes no sense.

Good luck to the two debutants

Had a feeling Wood would get a run out here. Indeed good luck to him. ( and Lyth). Though I wouldn't close the file on Jordan by any means...he may yet make a Test bowler.
Reckon there will be a bit of rotating the seamers this year , both through choice and wear and tear.

alfie wrote:

Stella wrote:Glad to see Jordan out. We don't even pick our best keeper, so keeping him in because he's a good fielder makes no sense.

Good luck to the two debutants

Had a feeling Wood would get a run out here. Indeed good luck to him. ( and Lyth). Though I wouldn't close the file on Jordan by any means...he may yet make a Test bowler.
Reckon there will be a bit of rotating the seamers this year , both through choice and wear and tear.

Jordan will almost certainly be back at some point, but we do need to look at a third seamer, who can potentially take wickets. Big game for Stokes as well.

I thought that looked a good shout ...

.... very close but umpire's call on height. Bad luck for Southee - as it wouldn't have been overturned if given out. Good call in the end not to review.

Hawkeye often shows the ball to be a touch higher than my eyes judge it on first sight in real time.

guildfordbat wrote:I thought that looked a good shout ...

Indeed . Very close. You couldn't really complain either way on that ...traditional umpiring gives the benefit to the batsman so I'd call it a good decision. But obviously if it is given on field ; well you wouldn't waste a review...

As to Jordan : I've seen theories he may end up competing with Stokes as fourth seamer (?) He'd need to improve with the bat...

Lyth gone ! Very faint touch ; but looks as if he did edge it , despite his looking as if he was doubtful.
Good ball. Southee likes Lord's

and so it begins.

Shame for Lyth, decent start but got a good one from Southee

NZ were somewhat wayward before that

Not a lot you can do about balls like that as an opener - weird to say but Lyth didn't look out of place at all

Going well, well done Captain Cook!

And now Ballance gone! Good ball from Boult to complete a very good over - liked the 4th ball dug in short to surprise Ballance and mix things up. Sharp catch from Southee as well.

And just before I press Send, Henry bounces out Cook ... oh dear!

Should have fielded

120 all out

Pietersen must be wearing a small grin at present.

You get the feeling this might be a regular occurrence this summer

Moeen running around the boundary from the nets - oh dear...

Stella wrote:Pietersen must be wearing a small grin at present.

Yes, Pietersen's looked even better and fitter this morning!

This is going well then. Carrying on where we left off against the deadly duo of Gabriel and Holder!

Olly wrote:Moeen running around the boundary from the nets - oh dear...

is that why Stokes is in at six?

VTR wrote:This is going well then. Carrying on where we left off against the deadly duo of Gabriel and Holder!

Remind me - are New Zealand mediocre as well?

guildfordbat wrote:

VTR wrote:This is going well then. Carrying on where we left off against the deadly duo of Gabriel and Holder!

Remind me - are New Zealand mediocre as well?

Of course they are, especially when compared to Yorkshire!

Warne thinks Cook will be bombarded with surprise bouncers

We've peaked as a species

Well they did say we might struggle against high quality swing bowling. So we can't play that, or express pace (Johnson) or extremely average up and down bowling (Holder/Gabriel) or spin (Ajmal).

What type of bowling are we actually good against?

Stella wrote:Pietersen must be wearing a small grin at present.

Probably did when in the side with things going like this.

Its hard for me to lay into them that much. Its been more good bowling than bad batting.

GSC wrote:Its hard for me to lay into them that much. Its been more good bowling than bad batting.

I'd agree all bar Cook's have been got out, rather than giving it away

This is my problem with England not giving Lyth at least one Test in the West Indies. No doubt with his 7 in the first innings and if he fails to weigh in with another score in the second innings then pressure will be on him. If he doesn't score anything meaningful in the second test then England are out of time to look for options. The same goes for Wood if he doesn't weigh in with wickets in this test.

Stokes and Root both playing very well

Cracking morning of play without a doubt. Great deliveries and a great counter-attack from Stokes and Root.

Aside from a quick burst, NZ really struggled to put in the right place this morning. Chased wickets too much after the flurry and gave Root and Stokes a foothold.

I only caught the last 20 minutes or so, and then caught up with the wickets. So I can't really comment on Lyth in particular.

Ballance can at times be a bit stuck on/inside the crease which makes him vulnerable to the fuller delivery. I get the feeling it's just one of those weaknesses you might have to take and play around, it doesn't seem to be something you can change without fundamentally modifying his technique.

Bell got a good ball, but I have said this before: he gets out bowled far too often in exactly this way. He loses his ballance going forward so ends up playing without a stride (his back-foot comes up alongside his front foot) and without a solid base, his hands go out in front of him and he doesn't cover his stumps. It's a fundamental flaw in his technique. Yes it's a good ball, but my feeling is Bell has made it look better than it actually was, not for the first time.

Mark Craig seems an interesting bowler. When he gets it right his loop and drift will be very dangerous, but I think he'll bowl the odd short ball, and that's magnified by a fairly slow pitch and his slow natural pace.

Root looks in such good form (kiss of death time) he really is playing beautifully at the moment.

Good to see Stokes with some runs also. I have the feeling he might be a bit of a confidence player so runs may help him bowl better also.

I'll be interested to see what Wood is like when he gets a go also.

That was frenetic stuff. At 40-4, 100 all out looked more than on.

Lords is usually quite a flat wicket though, so not sure what a good score is, and 300 is still a long way off which I think has got to be the bare minimum otherwise New Zealand can say putting England in was the right decision.

And based on only 20 minutes I would tend to agree with GSC. I thought New Zealand if anything over-attacked (yes there is such a thing); not necessarily a bad thing on the opening morning having inserted England (getting another breakthrough before lunch would have easily been worth the extra 15 or 20 runs), but there may come a time certainly towards mid-afternoon where a slightly more defensive gameplan would be sensible. Also working over batsmen over a spell rather than going for wickets every other ball.

However VTR is also correct - Lords in recentish history has tended to get flatter and flatter as the game progresses, so those 4 wickets for next to nothing have given New Zealand a definite foothold in the game.

That was a good morning. I wasn't entirely surprised to see early wickets fall because when these NZ seamers get it right (on a green top wicket) then they're phenomenal. Apart from Ballance's wicket and arguably cook's (short ball was a good surprise tactic) they all got out to good balls. Lyth looked composed at the crease, he shouldn't be too down about it.

Root once again leading the recovery and some good counter attacking by Stokes. He's growing more and more into a flintoff type lower order batsmen. Useful player for England. Ali and Buttler still to come, think 250-300 would be a good first up score, then hopefully take a couple of wickets tonight then if there's time.

Mike Selig wrote:
...

Bell got a good ball, but I have said this before: he gets out bowled far too often in exactly this way. He loses his ballance going forward so ends up playing without a stride (his back-foot comes up alongside his front foot) and without a solid base, his hands go out in front of him and he doesn't cover his stumps. It's a fundamental flaw in his technique. Yes it's a good ball, but my feeling is Bell has made it look better than it actually was, not for the first time.

...

Totally agree with Mike's point about the ball that got Bell. The guys on Sky were raving about it at the time. Yes, it was a very good ball but Bell didn't cover up enough and allowed the damage to happen.

Mike - you would have liked Boult's dismissal of Ballance as it happened. Not so much the ball but the preceding 5 balls of the over leading up to it. Well thought out. Reminded me of Roberts although you would say McGrath.

New Zealand won the first hour so convincingly they remain nicely on top. However, we fought back well and won the second. IF (big '''if''), we can add another 120 in the afternoon session for the loss of only 1 wicket we should be back to about level and maybe looking to end the day slightly ahead. However, a couple of quick wickets after lunch and we are right back in the mire. Very interesting ....

Missed the first session, by all accounts, an action packed one....... Another collapse from England, yet again its young Joe to bail them out. How often can he be expected to do this? But a very unEnglish way of responding to 30-4, and that has helped them recover to 113-4. Nice to see Ben Stokes among the runs, he does need some consistent performances going into a big summer and an equally big winter.

I think collapse is harsh.

I've been critical of England in the recent past many times, but on this occasion, it was New Zealand bowling very well when they got it right.

So Lyth making his debut as expected, and Mark Wood also gets an opening, good to see that.
The nippier, more attacking Matt Henry preferred to the workhorse Neil Wagner for New Zealand. Corey Anderson in as the all-rounder, but interestingly, didn't bowl at all in the morning.

Excellent first session. Had to go out for a while so missed most of the mayhem...but after viewing the wickets I'd agree it was mainly good bowling ; though I take the point about Bell getting bowled too often. Cook might regret his hook ; but it is a shot he plays well and we all moan when they don't look to score runs.

Four wickets makes it NZ session ; but the impressive counter attack from Root and Stokes has gone some way to redressing the balance...

Sending England in was clearly a good move ; whether it will be a decisive one remains to be seen.

Root to fifty

Latham keeping after Watling suffers a knee injury in the first session.

Cant imagine its serious if he continued to the end so probably a precaution.

England continue on the counterattack mode as Stokes takes on Southee right away after lunch.