[Cricket] New Zealand vs. England 2nd Test Cello Basin Reserve, Wellington

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Blimey some negative stuff on here. The whole point of Bazball is to aggressively play for the win and there are associated risks with that, the win loss column has clearly favoured that approach. Not only that the cricket has been hugely entertaining and yet again Test Cricket has shown the shorter form of the game what real sport really is.

What a winter it has been for marvellous Test Cricket.

For those doom and gloom merchants on here, if we bring it back to football would you rather watch De Zerbi's Brighton trying to win a game but recognising that sometimes it might not come off or Marco Silva's Fulham who will win games but bore you rigid in doing so?

 

[Bold Seagull]

I like Test cricket, but in the modern day I can see why its lost some interest in some countries due to one day 50 over matches and the 20/20s
I cant think of another sport that runs for 5 days and the end result can end in a draw, sometimes due to weather or pitches that are too friendly to the batsmen to get 20 wickets for one side. Also most people can not watch it all the time due to work etc.
It seems the majority white countries still have good crowds for Test cricket, but the Asian countries and West Indies are often played with less than full grounds.

South Africa haven't had crowds for test cricket for years, the Aussies only get full houses when we're in town, NZ as we've just seen while quaint and beautiful have a few thousand dotted on grass banks, as do the Sri Lankans.

When you zoom out a bit, test cricket only exists because of England and that is why England play more test matches than anyone else. No other country wants 4 or 5 match test series, we are bargaining for most of them to continue to do so.

In the current World Test Championship 2021-23 England have played 22 tests. The next team is Australia with 17 tests, India 16, Pakistan 14, South Africa 13, NZ and WI 11. Most of them would rather squeeze more ODIs and T20s in than have to play tests.

Someone earlier said it's not down to England to save test cricket. I rather think it is.

 

[Triggaaar]

I watched the last hour live and my thoughts are these:

1. Congratulations to New Zealand for winning from the follow-on, such a gutsy display.

Yep.

2. If Bracewell had not made a hash of the Foakes chance on the boundary NZ would have won by a reasonably comfortable margin.

If Root hadn't run out Brook, England would have won by a comfortable margin.

3. The umpire has had an absolute shocker with the Jimmy Anderson wide. He'd correctly called previous wides and no-balls but bottled this one. It cost England a series win. I think Anderson was momentarily confused, and that then led to his poor shot the following ball.

Indeed, he just bottled it. I'd understand except that England were down to 2 men who couldn't score, so it was a huge risk to take, and it ended up changing the result.

And as for the Kiwi pundit who said the umpire was right not to call it because it was no way to end a series - bollocks, if it's a wide by some margin it needs to be called, regardless of the situation.

Agreed.

 

[Eeyore]

South Africa haven't had crowds for test cricket for years, the Aussies only get full houses when we're in town, NZ as we've just seen while quaint and beautiful have a few thousand dotted on grass banks, as do the Sri Lankans.

When you zoom out a bit, test cricket only exists because of England and that is why England play more test matches than anyone else. No other country wants 4 or 5 match test series, we are bargaining for most of them to continue to do so.

In the current World Test Championship 2021-23 England have played 22 tests. The next team is Australia with 17 tests, India 16, Pakistan 14, South Africa 13, NZ and WI 11. Most of them would rather squeeze more ODIs and T20s in than have to play tests.

Someone earlier said it's not down to England to save test cricket. I rather think it is.

I want to say to you that's rubbish. But I can't. The facts don't lie. England is a money spinning visit for the other nations. Apart from Melbourne on Boxing Day there seem to be very few grounds even half full these days. Very sad.

 

[Eeyore]

I agree that the Anderson delivery was a wide. But the key issue is the whole Test when reviewing the misses that led to defeat.

And if the Kiwis can accept losing the World Cup FInal on a non subjective umpire's call we should accept defeat with grace here.

 

[Triggaaar]

I like Test cricket, but in the modern day I can see why its lost some interest in some countries due to one day 50 over matches and the 20/20s
I cant think of another sport that runs for 5 days and the end result can end in a draw, sometimes due to weather or pitches that are too friendly to the batsmen to get 20 wickets for one side.

Indeed. You can get great games like this one that the die-hards will suddenly quote to prove that Test cricket is the best, but the fact is, most people prefer other forms of the game. You can't just persuade people to love what you love.

 

[knocky1]

Yep.


If Root hadn't run out Brook, England would have won by a comfortable margin.

We would have entered a different time sphere. Root would not have received any of the deliveries he actually faced. Who knows what he or Brook would have achieved.
Don't you watch Tipping Point?

Anyway it was never going to be a comfortable margin with 6 wickets down.

 

[Triggaaar]

We would have entered a different time sphere.

Indeed.

Anyway it was never going to be a comfortable margin with 6 wickets down.

6? If Root hadn't run out Brook we'd have been 4 wickets down, and one of those was the night-watchman, having lost the same batsmen as the first innings when we were 21-3.

 

[knocky1]

Indeed.


6? If Root hadn't run out Brook we'd have been 4 wickets down, and one of those was the night-watchman, having lost the same batsmen as the first innings when we were 21-3.

I see my mistake. It was a good long blurry night even without alcohol.

 

[um bongo molongo]

As posted previously, he will almost certainly not send down over after over anymore, but his batting and captaincy will keep him in the team.

Brearley couldn't bat or bowl but had a fiendish cricketing brain as well as the ability to get performances out of those who could!

I know this sounds crazy, but I’d quite like to see Stokes open the batting. He has a solid defence, it would allow Bairstow to come back in the middle order, and he would be better at the ‘attacking opener’ role than Crawley. I also think it may take the pressure off him to play over-aggressively, and if he isn’t going to bowl much then that isn’t an issue.

 

[Eeyore]

Oh dear oh dear

Went to bed with Root and Stokes making a fight of it and woke up to find we have lost by 1 run and thrown the series win away.

Sorry but the Bazball decision to enforce the follow on was wrong (even if we had won). Anderson and Broad need an innings rest between bowling as proven by the fact that between them they took 7 wickets in the first innings and only 1 in the 2nd.

I think the declaration that England will try and win at all costs is a vanity project that plays into the hands of our opposition. They can predict what we are going to do.

Imagine us being 1-0 up at Stoke with ten minutes remaining and then losing after RDZ decides to take off Steele and put Lamptey in goal and bring on another striker to try and make it 2-0.

It is not England's task to save Test cricket it is England's task to win Test series.

All this on top of the Fulham loss has upset me.

Those of us on here at the time were anticipating the follow on. NZ had only been batting 11 overs that morning and, IIRC, Anderson had been held back. It was cloudy and good conditions to get stuck in.

Not enforcing the follow on has only become a big thing since Eden Gardens. This England team prefer to chase. So it made sense.

As regards the result, I went to bed glowing at how I had witnessed such an outstanding game at a difficult time for Test cricket. Cricket first, England second for me. The game is much more enjoyable that way.

Unless it's the Aussies, of course.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I want to say to you that's rubbish. But I can't. The facts don't lie. England is a money spinning visit for the other nations. Apart from Melbourne on Boxing Day there seem to be very few grounds even half full these days. Very sad.

Yep, to keep cricket going, England have had to now accept that the ODI team and Test team are 2 completely separate entities, hence a test can finish in NZ and a day later you are playing ODIs in Bangledesh. There is no pretense of crossover between them now.

I think the future tours programme has established that test series featuring England v India v Australia will still be 5 test series, but whereas England will go on to play 3 test series v the like of SL, SA, Pak, etc. the other 2 might only play 2 test series. England carry the weight of test cricket on their shoulders.

This current England approach and team is an absolute shot in the arm for the format. For anyone feeling they should have just played out a draw to secure the series win is missing a far bigger picture of what is going on in the game.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Yep, to keep cricket going, England have had to now accept that the ODI team and Test team are 2 completely separate entities, hence a test can finish in NZ and a day later you are playing ODIs in Bangledesh. There is no pretense of crossover between them now.

I think the future tours programme has established that test series featuring England v India v Australia will still be 5 test series, but whereas England will go on to play 3 test series v the like of SL, SA, Pak, etc. the other 2 might only play 2 test series. England carry the weight of test cricket on their shoulders.

This current England approach and team is an absolute shot in the arm for the format. For anyone feeling they should have just played out a draw to secure the series win is missing a far bigger picture of what is going on in the game.

Would be a shame if Root and Brook weren't able to play ODIs though.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Would be a shame if Root and Brook weren't able to play ODIs though.

I'm not saying players couldn't play all formats if schedules allow, just that the ODI side playing in Bangladesh the day after the Test side finish a series in NZ confirms they are now completely separate things. That has been the case for sometime really, but I don't remember it being quite so obvious as this.