England's Summer of Cricket 2021

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2nd June-14th June: Two tests v New Zealand

23rd June-26th June: Three T20s v Sri Lanka
29th June-4th July: Three ODIs v Sri Lanka

8th July-13th July: Three ODIs v Pakistan
16th July-20th July: Three T20s V Pakistan

4th August-14th September: Five Tests v India

Blue sky and genuine heat up in Manchester. So strange its raining down south.

Sad weather ruining the day. When it was raining at the start, was hoping for a cloudy day of cricket after the initial burst, negating the godawful pitch and bringing some zip into the bowling. Unfortunately, the rain has been stubborn...
Someone suggested yesterday about England asking for flat pitches, George Dobell confirmed the same on cricinfo subsequently. There is of course a convoluted stupid logic being projected around though, something like the bowlers need to know how to bowl on flat pitches and all that rubbish. Test pitches around the world are becoming more and more result oriented. England's batting is the real problem. Other than Root and Stokes, it lacks class in general. They are hoping some of the rest can at least develop into flat-track bullies, and the generally skilled bowling unit then will be able to do the job more often than not.
Every team has to have the privilege to ask for home conditions suiting their strength. However, are they going in the right direction here? high quality seam bowling is England's strength, and when the conditions would have a little bit in for swing, the likes of Anderson would be able to maximize the same. But a flat pitch may not be what he needs regularly, with his aging body and all that. Anderson can reverse it for sure, but on flat tracks, besides reverse, you need express pace and quality spin.
Anderson is not an express pacer, neither is Broad. Stokes is quite sharpish but not express. Wood and Archer are proper fast, but do not have a great fitness record, and in the former's case, not a very impressive home record in general.
The spin department is not worth talking about in that context. Jack Leach, considered by many as England's best spin option at the moment, can't be trusted to do the job of even containing in the first innings on a flat track. Dom Bess is considered far too inconsistent. Moeen Ali is not the preferred option and Rashid is not even interested in playing tests it seems.
So instead of playing to their strength, England team management seems to be weakening their strength, and giving the opposition batters a better chance of success in conditions that otherwise should have been challenging and demanding. And making the toss far too crucial.
If they really go through with this, there is of course the issue of damaging the game of test cricket by possibly facilitating boring run fests and drab draws.
Can only hope that the team management would have asked for a few such pitches in between, or we will have to look up, the one saving grace in England is always the weather. If it just stops short of what it has done today, the pitch can be taken out of the equation significantly.

Play abandoned for the day. An irritating drizzle defeats the Lord's drainage, even though broadcasters were optimistic about the prospect of play.

Very likely to be a draw now, barring an England collapse in the morning to spice it up. There are 196 overs left, but likely 6-10 will be lost tomorrow due to slow over rates, and that's not accounting for the change of innings taking 2 off at a time.

20 or so miles south of the ground and it's a lovely day here. Just like Wednesday and Thursday. So annoying that yesterday's wash out looks to have confined this game to a draw.

Matters not helped by the appalling over rate and an inability to ''get on with the game''. There's no good reason why the start time can't be brought forward by 30 minutes when lost time needs to be made up.

Root gone first ball to the superb Jamieson. Nelson strikes. England's main man goes.

If the Kiwis can bowl England out inside two sessions, they may have a chance of forcing the win.

Oh dear, we've jinxed Michael Gough, who's made an umpiring error. Pope was plumb, can only assume Gough thought he hit it.

Very hit-and-miss innings from Pope. Some excellent timing in a few shots, but poor judgement on a few others.

Absolute rubbish from Lawrence, England in a bit of bother.

That's shocking from Lawrence. A terrible shot full stop but the lack of match awareness in that is staggering.

There’s a man completely wasting his chance

Duty281 wrote:Oh dear, we've jinxed Michael Gough, who's made an umpiring error. Pope was plumb, can only assume Gough thought he hit it.

Very hit-and-miss innings from Pope. Some excellent timing in a few shots, but poor judgement on a few others.

Live I thought out. On the initial replay I thought Pope might have just tickled it as there didn't look like any gap between bat and ball.

If Pope knew he hit it he didn't show any frustration with snicko not picking it up though. Snicko doesn't miss much either.

Pope once again looking good but getting out. Immensely talent but it's a habit he needs to break.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:There’s a man completely wasting his chance

Yep, sadly. With Stokes to come back at least one of Pope or Lawrence will miss out against India.

Bracey has a brilliant chance to stake a claim for Crawley's spot at 3 with some runs here. The balls swinging, he's facing a quality seam attack and batting with another opener. If he's smart he'll just play this as if he's opening the batting.

Duty281 wrote:Oh dear, we've jinxed Michael Gough, who's made an umpiring error. Pope was plumb, can only assume Gough thought he hit it.

Very hit-and-miss innings from Pope. Some excellent timing in a few shots, but poor judgement on a few others.

Yeah, surprised by Gough's error. Certainly looked out to me in real time.

Pope's been scoring quickly for Surrey too this season. Regularly getting a start but not always going on. Averaging over 60 in the Championship although aided by a top score of 245. Sadly, gone for a disappointing 22 today.

Meanwhile, Lawrence goes without troubling the scorers. Poor shot to the clever Southee. Debutant Bracey into the fray.

No Conway-esque debut for Bracey. Southee bowling magnificently this morning.

England might just lose this.

Oh dear.

Can we avoid the follow on...

Robinson with the opportunity to show his batting ability and character after a troubling couple of days. I fancy him to make some runs and especially after being saved first ball by an inside edge. [Please don't be a jinx!]

alfie wrote:Good stand between Root and Burns has brought England back into the game ; though we should be cautious as 111/2 can easily become 150/5 and it all changes...



This is supposed to be "moving day" , eh ?  So the first session may give us a better idea of where this match is going.
England ...depends largely on Root . I do miss Ben Stokes...

I think I was right to be cautious  

Haven't been able to watch a lot of this morning's play. But what I have seen reinforces my view that England's batting is extremely dodgy...

Kiwis have bowled differently to Burns today. Too much straight stuff on the pads for Burns to deal with comfortably on Thursday; most of it today has been way outside off-stump. It's tied Burns down well and just a few signs of frustration from him now as a result.

Was surprised De Grandhomme was first change again. He's mostly a defensive bowler who's excellent at keeping it tight, but if you want to attack Wagner is the better choice.

Following on from Alfie's post, poor batting from too many although Southee, in particular, has bowled well and cleverly.

Particularly when compared to his teammates, a good and valuable innings from the rocklike Burns as he reaches 70. Important for us in this Test and him for the season. The question now is can he go on? Too often, he leaves us wanting.

Robinson is at least providing handy support with a bit of aggression mixed in. I think (? not entirely sure) that he scored a ton on debut for Sussex after being sacked by Yorks. I'm certainly not expecting that from him today but a 40 or so is possible and would be worth a lot.

Duty281 wrote:Kiwis have bowled differently to Burns today. Too much straight stuff on the pads for Burns to deal with comfortably on Thursday; most of it today has been way outside off-stump. It's tied Burns down well and just a few signs of frustration from him now as a result.

Was surprised De Grandhomme was first change again. He's mostly a defensive bowler who's excellent at keeping it tight, but if you want to attack Wagner is the better choice.

When Burns was first making his way at Surrey, he was batting one time with Ricky Ponting. The story goes that after about an hour together, Ponting walked down from the non-striker's end and said, ''You do realise there's an off side?''

Two errors from Gough? Is the world ending?

I think we can forget about the follow-on, but if NZ can take the remaining four wickets in the first hour of the afternoon, they'll likely have enough time to throw the bat around and declare with around 85-90 overs left in the game.

Southee was superb this morning, full credit to him, and Lawrence should be fined for such a pathetic dismissal.

Southee certainly bowled beautifully this morning...but you'd have to say he was aided by some very poor batting.
Funny old game this : after day one everyone was moaning about this pitch being a boring dead flat road that would kill the contest completely : it really hasn't changed that dramatically ; but apart from Conway and Burns - both of whom have played very much in the old style steady opener mode - no one has managed to play a big innings . And certainly no one has even threatened take the bowling apart.(except for Wagner , maybe )
The loss of a full day has probably killed the chance of a result , unless more collapses happen (not impossible!) but perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to condemn the groundsman until we've seen a couple of days play. It is , as far as I can see , a surface that considerably favours the batsmen ; but we've seen that good bowling can get results on it unless the batsmen are prepared to be patient. Suppose what is needed now is something for the spinners on day five...except there really aren't any worth mentioning

Follow on saved

Santner proving a bit of a handful with some variable bounce and a bit of turn.

I've no problems with this pitch. It favours the batsmen, as Lord's normally does, but there's always been something for the bowlers to remain interested. Not a one-sided contest at all.

Robinson into the 30s. Solid since the second ball thus far.

Robinson having a good match , apart from twitter-gate. Very valuable support with the bat for Burns here , as the latter continues to channel Bailey , Boycott and Tavare. Fifty stand comes up just when England needed it

Second new ball imminent. That might be interesting.

Village keeping from Watling.

Wow ! Rare shocker from Watling , who isn't having much fun in this match. Olly's mate Santner does Burns beautifully, and the keeper misses the easiest of stumping chances .

Relief for England given Southee is back now with a new one and they still trail by 180...

Didn't take the new ball long to account for Robinson and Wood...Burns could end up high and dry short of his hundred here...

If England have a post-match dinner planned there will be no shortage of duck for the menu.

guildfordbat wrote:Following on from Alfie's post, poor batting from too many although Southee, in particular, has bowled well and cleverly.

Particularly when compared to his teammates, a good and valuable innings from the rocklike Burns as he reaches 70. Important for us in this Test and him for the season. The question now is can he go on? Too often, he leaves us wanting.

Robinson is at least providing handy support with a bit of aggression mixed in. I think (? not entirely sure) that he scored a ton on debut for Sussex after being sacked by Yorks. I'm certainly not expecting that from him today but a 40 or so is possible and would be worth a lot.

Just as well he followed your instructions , Guildford ! Scorecard would look decidedly sick without it.

Burns is "going on" , I think we can say. Unfortunately he's scoring so slowly he's unlikely to bring them too close to the NZ score ; but he's done a pretty good job , especially given the lack of assistance he's had from his peers.

Liked Robinson's innings. Good shot selection and punished anything amiss with excellent timing. More than did his job.

No fireworks from Wood, and Broad looks as though he's in 'walking wicket' mode. No effort from Burns to protect him from the strike.

Burns must have a pocket full of lucky charms...gave catching practice to slips then and was nearly caught by two of them...

Tough to concentrate this long. Just a few errors lately : hope he can find another 11 runs somehow.


And now he's worn another bang on the head. Thank the lord for helmets...

Not too smart there from Broad. After hitting Wagner for six I reckon the full ball was certain to be following and he really should have been ready to defend.
Burns only left with Jimmy now but at least he has the strike...needs nine more. Can't see him getting there with sixes ...

But he's tried to ! Nearly caught , four runs...on to 98 now...

Jimmy defends two ... Burns will have his chance...

Mental resolve gets 100

Yes.

Well deserved hundred for Burns... Bit of luck the last hour , but a gutsy performance

Good century for Burns. Showed the virtue of patience that other England batsmen can learn from.

That's an important knock for Burns and England. The batting is so fragile that they simply have to have more than Root with a bit of confidence.

If it weren't for that knock England would be in a whole lot more trouble than they already are. Important that this partnership takes a bit more time out the game and runs out of the NZ lead.

I'd guess that Williamson will be hoping to score around 200 runs in decent time and set England 300+ to win in just over two sessions on day 5.

Nasser is completely right about Queenstown!

That Burns knock is my favourite to watch. Just not enough of that grit with England. I know he has weaknesses, but the mental side of Burns's game makes him an easy pick.  The guy fights for his place and fights in his innings, not put off by a lucky break and done brilliantly to push on as wickets fell.

And now showing a lovely flair to his play as the pressure of the 90s disappears.

Scoring in this match has been pretty slow throughout. Not sure how quickly NZ will be able to rattle up two hundred...they'll have a decent lead (still 125 at the moment) but won't want to risk getting rolled cheaply and giving England a sniff.
Could be an interesting decision for Williamson some time tomorrow...

He's having a bowl now ...looks distinctly rusty.

New Zealand bowled well in general, particularly the very impressive Tim Southee. Their catching, and Watling behind the stumps, weren't up to it, and those fielding lapses have meant, that whatever little chances that they had of forcing a result was gone. Now they have to deal with a frustrating last wicket partnership.
But fine hand from Burns. He really did need a score, and it has come at a very good time for England. With no Stokes, England is down to only 1 proven clas act in the batting unit, and they badly need more people to stand up. Burns did have some luck on the way, the pitch is quite flat even now, but this is still a knock that he can be very proud of.

The more this last wicket partnership lasts, the easier it becomes for Williamson with that decision. Bat normally, bat long, put miles into the England bowlers, and perhaps have some fun with the ball in the last couple of hours if all goes to plan. This pitch doesn't look like cracking up in the next couple of weeks, there are plenty of runs to be scored yet though more attritionally rather than explosively. New Zealand batters should just make sure that they would take away bulk of those runs. No point going for glory on this track, and Williamson doesn't seem like that kind of captain. Could have expected someone like Kohli to have probally gone for it and risked a defeat even.

Top effort this from Burns. Plenty of grit as Dolphin noted.

First fifty in 90 balls , second fifty took 177. And now he's relaxing and hitting boundaries everywhere...

Useful last wicket stand . As indeed was the case on Thursday for NZ. The collapses have all been in the middle of innings : slightly odd that there have been so many ducks on a blameless pitch.

Said that, it has to be said that Santner is able to turn a few here. Even a spinner like him is not a no-hoper here. Asking more questions of England's team selection, or the class of the spinner they consider as the best available for them at the moment.

More frustration for Wagner and New Zealand, Burns now survives a review on umpire's call.
Wagner had a pretty poor start to the game, and though he has bowled better today, he still seems some way away from his best.

Now Burns slog-sweeps Wagner for six ! I think he enjoyed that

Perhaps he's auditioning for the White ball squad ...

Why can't we just call Darren Stevens up?!

Immensely frustrating stand for the Kiwis now ends. Burns adding some style points to his innings against a visibly weary opposition. It's been pretty poor from England with the bat today, Burns and Robinson excepted, but they've stayed at the crease long enough to all-but secure the draw.

Only way this won't be a draw is if England conjure up an inspired effort with the ball and bowl the Kiwis out for a sub-200 score...but that'll be tough on this pitch!

Southee was exceptional. Jamieson good, though struggled against the left-handers. De Grandhomme dependable.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Why can't we just call Darren Stevens up?!

5/73 from the great man today.

Six wickets for the excellent Southee 6/43. Shares the day's honours with Burns 132.

Fifty stand for the last wicket has probably killed off any serious chance of a NZ win. Think msp is on the money in suggesting NZ will basically just play this game out now. They won't want to exhaust their bowlers with another match following quickly - and an arguably more important date with India the main focus of this tour...

So Southee finishes with 6. Fine effort from him, leading attack superbely in the absence of his bowling partner Trent Boult. New Zealand should feel they let England score 20 -30 extra and eat away some time, and now they will have to bat well upfront, to ensure that they wouldn't lose from this position.
Despite the familiar collapse, think England have batted themselves to safety here, more or less. Think if anyone can win from here, it will be England, and not quite New Zealand.
If Anderson and co have an outstanding final session wherein they can nip out 3 or 4 for around 50, then New Zealand won't be able to sleep well at all, and England will be in with a chance. Will Anderson find some reverse? Will Wood's pace prove lethal on this track that is showing a little bit of natural variation? Will Root be able to spin out a few?
Lets see...

New Zealand's mantra should be just bat normally. Don't do anything flashy and try and push the scoring along. At the same time, don't get into an ultra defensive mode even if they lose a wicket or 2 early on, the scoring need to keep moving along, so that the bowlers are not allowed to bowl where ever and whatever that they want and Root set whatever field he wants...

2 of NZ's senior, consistent contributors have had a poor game so far. BJ Watling couldn't make a difference with the bat, and probably has had one of his worst games behind the stumps.
Neil Wagner did not only not make the step up that he was required and expected to make in the absence of Boult, but was far from his best, pretty poor up front and inconsistent throughout. He batted better than he bowled in this game so far.
2 of their batting guns also failed in the first outing, Kane Williamson looked in from the moment he walked in but was done in by James Anderson not for the first time. Ross Taylor looked more like Chris Martin throughout his stay, looked like getting out every ball before he eventually did. Watling and Wagner would hope that they wouldn't be called on for much work for the rest of the game. But KW and Rosco will have to get back to their best right away if that is to happen...