England vs New Zealand
1st Test (of 3)
Lord’s, London
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th June 2022
Result: England (141 & 279-5) beat New Zealand (132 & 285) by 5 wickets
I’ve looked it up. There were 281 days between England’s men completing an innings victory over India at Headingley on 28th August last year and scoring the winning runs to beat New Zealand at Lord’s yesterday. That forty week gap between Test wins was without doubt far too long for a nation that loves this form of the game as much as we do. It had included a third disastrous Ashes tour on the bounce, the well-intentioned but ultimately ludicrous decision to drop James Anderson and Stuart Broad, and the departure of the captain, the coach and the managing director.
It was fitting that Joe Root was the one to get England home. To say he is now able to play freely, unburdened by the responsibility of being captain, isn’t quite right. He was still the best batter in the team when he was leading it. At Lord’s, however, the smile was definitely wider and the shoulders a little lighter. His 115 not out to see England safely to their target of 277 was masterful and it was great to see him enjoying being out there. Root is a special one, who we will not truly appreciate until he is no longer there. He would walk into any previous England side and be one of the first names in a World XI of current male Test players. Surprisingly, this was his first fourth innings century, but it also got him to the landmark of 10,000 Test runs. Only thirteen others have ever reached that number and at the age of just 31 he could well have more than anyone else by the time he calls it a day.
England got the bowling attack exactly right. Regardless of their age, Anderson and Broad are two of the best there have ever been and simply had to play. Anderson will always get wickets and won’t go for many runs, either. Broad is capable of incredible spells in which it feels as if he turns a match on its head all by himself, as we saw on the third morning when one of his overs brought about three wickets that meant New Zealand went from being in a very strong position to blowing the door open for England.
Had it not been for the staggering number of injuries currently hampering England’s pace bowlers (they have no fewer than six currently unavailable), Matty Potts probably wouldn’t have been in contention for the squad, let alone making his Test debut. I like the attitude from new coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes to give a young man in good form a go and he repaid them with seven wickets. I feel like I’ve seen enough of Craig Overton, the other contender for a place in the side this week, for now. Potts must surely play in the second match at Trent Bridge.
The unfortunate Jack Leach was withdrawn from the game early on its first morning when he landed heavily attempting to stop the ball getting to the boundary and subsequently showing signs of concussion. The relatively recent addition of concussion substitutes meant that England were able to replace him with someone who could play a full part and they called upon Matt Parkinson, the leg spinner, who had to make his way from Manchester to London. Many had been calling for Parkinson to play in the match anyway, so for them the sight of ‘Parky’ being awarded his Test cap was welcome and overdue. He had been taken to the Caribbean but bafflingly left out, carrying the drinks while the bowling attack toiled. His first and so far only Test wicket was that of Tim Southee to bring New Zealand’s second innings to an end, but in a match dominated by the seamers little can be read into that. He simply has to be given another chance in Nottingham.
The batting order is still a deep concern. Alex Lees and Zak Crawley opened, as they did in the Caribbean, but Lees is in danger of falling into the trope of looking good but not scoring many runs. His second innings 20 was, according to Michael Vaughan on the BBC coverage, the best runs he’d seen him make for England so far but then he made a terrible decision to leave a Kyle Jamieson delivery that thumped into his stumps and left him looking foolish. Crawley, we’re always being told, has so much talent, and he does – that 267 against Pakistan two years ago and the hundred he made on the West Indies tour earlier this year are proof of that. He’s not been consistent enough, though, and has a James Vinceian tendency to get out the same way all the time (caught behind or in the slips trying a flashy drive). His average is under 30. It seems incredible that England haven’t found the right opening partnership since Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook.
Ollie Pope is another batter with undoubted talent. I have fond memories of his hundred in Johannesburg against South Africa, an innings that made him look every inch the Test player. He was brought into this match, however, as a number three – a position he’d never previously played in. Another couple of disappointing scores will not have helped to get certain sections of the public off his back.
This is something I have noticed with the England team of late. Whenever they dismiss a team cheaply, some fans will laud the excellent bowling. If an England batter should be out for a low score, however, it is always because they are not good enough and should be dropped. I was watching the run chase on television and thought that Crawley and Pope – Pope in particular – lost their wickets to brilliant pieces of bowling that they could have done little to prevent. The reaction online was that both were useless and pathetic. I wonder how many of these commenters had actually seen the dismissals at all, or whether they were just waiting to see the fall of their wickets so they could criticise them.
The next questionable member of the England top order was Jonny Bairstow. He had actually been one of the team’s form players this year, with a century in Sydney and Antigua, but had played no red ball cricket since the Caribbean tour because he’d been at the IPL. It was clear he hadn’t been able to switch his mindset away from the short forms, as a couple of scatty innings saw him bowled both times for not very many. One of the explanations often offered for why England seem to stick to the same underperforming batting line up is that there is no one else waiting in the wings. The early part of the county season has shown this to be untrue, with impressive performances from Harry Brook, Ben Compton and Josh Bohannon giving them genuine options. With the batting once again being spared its blushes by Root and Stokes, it feels like an opportunity was missed to give someone new a go at Lord’s.
On a happier note, Ben Foakes showed exactly why I’ve been calling for him to be in the side for years. As much as I love Jos Buttler, he just isn’t a Test match cricketer and through his immaculate wicket keeping and digging in to support Root in the run chase hopefully Foakes has cemented his place for the foreseeable future.
All things considered, this would be the team I would pick for the second Test:
- Alex Lees
- Zak Crawley
- Dawid Malan/Ben Compton
- Joe Root
- Harry Brook
- Ben Stokes (c)
- Ben Foakes (wk)
- Matty Potts
- Stuart Broad
- James Anderson
- Matt Parkinson
I think Lees is worth persisting with. I was thinking of replacing Crawley with Compton, but feel there was enough in his performance at Lord’s to give him another go. Dawid Malan is a name that hasn’t been mentioned much recently but he was harshly dropped after the Ashes tour, where he was actually one of England’s better batters. Brook is in amazing form and deserves to play ahead of Bairstow. Parkinson needs another go, even if Leach is fit. The rest of the side are assured of their places.
In fact, it’s highly unlikely that England will make any changes. As the old saying goes, ‘you don’t change a winning team’. What a pleasure it is to be positive about the England Test team again, to be writing about a win. In some ways we’ve learned very little – we’re still not sure about the top order, we know that Root is class and that Anderson and Broad are still the best – but in others we’ve learned a lot. Setting the summer up with a victory could be huge for this new England team. Let’s hope they can follow it up at Trent Bridge next week.
Broadcasting is another great interest of mine and it was nice to see Sky Sports back, showing their first live England Test since last September after a winter of BT Sport exclusivity. The commentary team has changed a lot since last year. Michael Holding has retired, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd has left, Rob Key is now the England men’s managing director of cricket and there was of course the tragic and untimely death of the great Shane Warne. Sky dedicated the whole Test to the Australian legend and his name was never far from anyone’s lips. The TV commentary box at Lord’s has been renamed after him and on the first morning the ribbon was cut live on the coverage. They also used the lunch breaks to show a documentary about Warne. 23 overs into the first day’s play there was an applause for him, a moving moment in which everyone on the field lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to commemorate an icon gone too soon.
When the Australian Mel Jones resumed commentating after the applause, it was with an emotional break in her voice that was shared by everyone. Jones was part of the commentary team alongside fellow Aussie Mark Taylor (great insight), Kiwi Simon Doull, England white ball captain Eoin Morgan and the stalwarts Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and Ian Ward. Even with Mark Butcher going down with Covid before the match, the Sky team is still the best in the business. Holding and Lloyd were the subject of another documentary, Voices of Summer, narrated by the brilliant Charles Colvile. I urge you to watch it, which if you can do here:
LEE PAYNE 