LEE PAYNE

Tag: bairstow

  • England seal a superb series whitewash

    England vs New Zealand
    3rd Test (of 3)
    Headingley, Leeds
    23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th June 2022
    Result: England (360 & 296-3) beat New Zealand (329 & 326) by 7 wickets
    England win the series 3-0

    England received the trophy after winning the series 3-0

    It was only innate English pessimism that put any doubt in the ability of our re-energised Test team to knock off the 113 runs required to win the third Test and seal a 3-0 series whitewash.

    Tickets for the final day at Headingley were free, just as they were at Trent Bridge last week, but some stayed away as grey Yorkshire skies on Monday morning brought showers of rain that prevented any play until after lunch. I think allowing free entry on the last day of the matches in this series has been a great idea, and I suspect a deliberate ploy to get the fans back in love with Test cricket, which had been in a desperate state over the last couple of years.

    With an entire session lost to the weather, part of me was watching the clock, worrying whether England would have enough time to seal the victory. I was a fool – once they did manage to get on the field, they had it done and dusted in just over an hour.

    Before this series, chasing anything more than 250 would have been daunting, but in a very short space of time Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have the squad believing they can win from any position. At Trent Bridge, they chased 299 in a mere 50 overs and in Leeds they went after the target of 296 at more than five runs an over. This final act was a formality, a New Zealand side run ragged longing for the plane home.

    Joe Root averaged 99.00 in the series

    It has been a series full of highs for England, but the brightest lights were Joe Root – officially the player of the series – and Jonny Bairstow, so it seemed fitting that they were together at the crease at the end. Root was 86 not out and would surely have gone on to a third century in the series, while in his current form Bairstow is brilliant fun to watch. Confident and totally at ease with his game, on his home ground he followed up his first innings 162 with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 71 from just 44 balls. With ten to win, he cracked a four off the very much part time bowling of Michael Bracewell and I said out loud: “will he try to finish this with a six?”. Next thing I knew, the ball was sailing into the stands. Jonny, you beauty!

    Jack Leach was the deserved player of the match for taking 10 wickets across the two innings. In my piece about the Trent Bridge Test, I said the Somerset spinner “just doesn’t seem like he’ll ever worry a batter”. He is a very likeable cricketer and is clearly highly valued by his team mates, so it was nice to see him do so well but I maintain that if England are going to dominate in Tests they will need to find a better spin bowler. Ollie Pope also had a good series, playing at number three for the first time. He rounded off his series with an 82 to go with the hundred he scored in Nottingham. Matty Potts bowled some excellent spells and, in his captain’s words, appears to have taken to international cricket “like a duck to water”, while Jamie Overton did not look out of place on debut, scoring a superb 97 with the bat and sending down some hostile short pitched bowling.

    In fact, the only England player to come out of this series badly is Zak Crawley. He made a tortured 25 on Sunday, during which he ran out his opening partner Alex Lees because he was too busy admiring his own shot, played flashy drives at deliveries that weren’t there to be driven and finally slapped a dreadful shot into the hands of Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson. He looks utterly out of his depth, but is in the squad for the India match next week. With a break after that until the South Africa series in the middle of August, it seems he may have a chance to get some runs for Kent, because surely he will need them if he’s going to keep his place.

    Zak Crawley scored just 87 runs in 6 innings in the series

    So, having gone into this series with one win in their last seventeen Test matches, England are celebrating a 3-0 clean sweep of the world champions New Zealand. Next up is India at Edgbaston on Friday, followed by three games against South Africa and then the tour of Pakistan in the autumn. The new regime has breathed new life into the red ball side and the fans will be looking forward to, rather than dreading, each fixture. But what of the visitors? It was a year ago that they were crowned the inaugural winners of the World Test Championship, but since then they have lost key players – wicketkeeper BJ Watling and batter Ross Taylor have both retired – and their usually reliable captain Williamson has been out of form. The only partnership England struggled to break was the one between Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell, who between them scored more runs than the rest of the New Zealand team combined. They struggled with injuries, Colin de Grandhomme and Kyle Jamieson both going home early, while Williamson missed the second match with Covid. Their team selections were strange, they didn’t play a proper spinner in two of the three Tests and the one when they did he was only given two overs.

    All that aside, however, it needs to be said that it is always a pleasure to play against New Zealand, the true gentlemen of the sport. England have had some terrific tussles with the Black Caps in recent years (this being the obvious one) but they always play the game in the right way and in the right spirit. I look forward to our next meeting.

    Watch the highlights of the fifth, decisive day of the third Test

  • Cricket is better than football

    England vs New Zealand
    2nd Test (of 3)
    Trent Bridge, Nottingham
    10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th June 2022
    Result: England (539 & 299-5) beat New Zealand (553 & 284) by 5 wickets

    Jonny Bairstow’s astonishing century won the second Test for England

    Sport is my strongest passion. My life is essentially a continuous festival of sport, and football and cricket are the headline acts. I love them both, but it might surprise some to learn that in the unlikely situation I was forced to sacrifice one to keep the other cricket would be my number one.

    It’s not easy to argue cricket’s case in the face of a sport that dominates as football does. Governing body FIFA estimates that 4% of the world’s population are active players or referees, and 3.2 billion watched the 2018 World Cup on television. In Britain, it feels like someone you meet is more likely to be a football fan than not and it is often a safe bet to use a following of the game as an ice breaker.

    Cricket is actually the second most popular sport in the world, though the numbers are boosted somewhat by its obsessed following in very large countries such as India and Pakistan. Here, it is not so common to come across a fellow cricket fan (even less so one in their twenties like me) and it at times feels like a passion – a guilty pleasure – to be kept a secret, fearful of hearing some nonsense about it being “boring”.

    I expect many to scoff at this, but I believe cricket is far from a boring sport and actually more exciting than football. You see, in football the sole aim of the game is to score a goal. Everyone watching is waiting to see a goal. Some will say they are interested in the tactical battle or the attractive passing style of play, but deep down they just want to see a goal. Even when a goalkeeper makes a great save, what the neutrals really wanted to see was a goal. Absolute goal fests in high level professional football are, however, very rare – that’s why they get talked about so much when they do come along – so in reality most football fans are disappointed and bored more often than not. People keep watching, keep turning up for each game because maybe, just maybe, the next one will be the one with all the goals in it.

    Every ball of a cricket match is an event. It has lulls of course, every sport does, but it can’t possibly be boring in comparison to football because you could see the equivalent of a goal every few seconds. Each time the bowler approaches the crease, there is so much that can happen. Perhaps a wicket will be taken – stumps flying everywhere, a stunning catch – or maybe the batter will whack it out of the ground, or try a risky reverse sweep. No one has ever unironically enjoyed a 0-0 result in football, either, while in cricket a draw can sometimes be among the most thrilling things ever to happen in any sport.

    Daryl Mitchell scored a century and a half century in the match but was on the losing side

    With three distinct forms of cricket (four if you count the Hundred, which I don’t), the thrills come in many ways. The five day Test match is my favourite and the game that finished on Tuesday, with England winning at Trent Bridge, is one of the best I’ve seen in nearly twenty years as a fan.

    A flat pitch and a small ground meant a total of 1,675 runs were scored, compared to 837 in the first Test at Lord’s last week. 249 boundaries were hit across the five days, a record for a Test match. New Zealand, missing their captain Kane Williamson because he tested positive for Covid on the eve of the match, made the most of being put into bat by racking up 553. Nine of the eleven batters made it into double figures, with Daryl Mitchell adding 190 to his century at Lord’s and Tom Blundell joining him with 106. On Saturday, many were saying that England had gone back to their old ways – they got the decision at the toss wrong, they didn’t bowl well, they were wasting reviews.

    The new approach from the skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum is always to take the positive option, and England were certainly positive with the bat. Scoring more than 500 in the first innings will usually ensure that you don’t lose the Test, at least, but New Zealand remarkably found themselves beaten by five wickets with a whopping 22 overs unbowled on the last evening.

    From Alex Lees starting to express himself as a Test opener with 67 and 44, to Ollie Pope’s long awaited second Test century, Joe Root continuing his astonishing run of form with 176 and Ben Stokes seeing England over the line with 75 off just 70 balls, it has been a series to savour for the batters.

    Then there’s Jonny Bairstow. In my piece about the Lord’s Test, I was dropping Jonny for Trent Bridge and criticising his recent lack of red ball cricket. More fool me. Unleased, given licence to go full on white ball mode, he cracked one of the great Test innings. 136 off 92 balls makes it the second fastest century by an England batter in this form of the game and, though he nicked behind and wasn’t there at the end, he had certainly “broken the back of it” in his words. An extraordinary cricketer.

    England complete a win that will live long in the memory

    At the end of it, England have won a series for the first time in 18 months and go to Headingley for the last match full of confidence. For all the positives, Zak Crawley contributed only 4 runs in the game and Jack Leach sent down some very uninspiring spells of slow left arm bowling. So, will they be tempted into a change for Leeds? Here is who I would pick:

    1. Alex Lees
    2. Rory Burns/Ben Compton
    3. Ollie Pope
    4. Joe Root
    5. Jonny Bairstow
    6. Ben Stokes (c)
    7. Ben Foakes (wk)
    8. Stuart Broad
    9. Matty Potts
    10. James Anderson
    11. Matt Parkinson

    I maintain that there is still a Test match opener in Rory Burns, who scored a timely century for Surrey this week. Ben Compton is still in excellent form for Kent so should also be in with a shout. I expect them to stick with Crawley, mind. They might decide to rest one or both of Anderson and Broad, the veterans having played two in a row. Jamie Overton has been called into the squad. Matty Potts deserves another go. I completely understood the decision to stick with Jack Leach, who never got the chance to make an impact at Lord’s as he left with concussion after about an hour, but it just doesn’t seem like he’ll ever worry a batter. Parkinson should play in his place.

    Just over a year ago, New Zealand sportingly set England 273 to win from about 75 overs at Lord’s. There were no World Test Championship points on the line in that series, so not much to lose. They didn’t go for it, and trundled to 170 for 3 and a draw. It’s incredible how much things have changed. 299 in 72 overs is a stiff ask, and at 93 for 4 even I would have been inclined to shut up shop and take the draw, but this England side are afraid of nothing. That last day needs to be seen to be believed, so I’ve put the highlights video below.

  • A draw – but for England, it will almost feel like a win

    This article was originally submitted to another website on Saturday 12th March but not published.

    Cricket being the glorious game it is, after five long days in Antigua the first Test between the West Indies and England ended in a draw and both sides move on to Barbados with the series level at 0-0.

    England really could do with winning in the Caribbean. They spent December and January being humiliated by Australia, a 4-0 Ashes thumping that was so bad the coach and the ECB’s managing director of cricket both lost their jobs. With the team’s pathetic top order batting causing outrage, they made the baffling decision to leave their two best bowlers at home. Joe Root remains as captain, but it would seem only because there are no other candidates for the role.

    The ‘red ball reset’ began by batting first, with Alex Lees on debut opening with Zak Crawley. By lunch, England were 57 for 4. Same old story. However, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and Ben Foakes then dug in and Bairstow completed a fine century, his eighth in Tests. From that dreadful start the tourists managed to post 311.

    Gareth Copley/Getty Images Sport

    Pressure would have been on Chris Woakes (with a poor record away from home) and Craig Overton taking the new ball in the absence of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. They had to perform to quieten the talk about the two greats.

    They didn’t. England were poor with the ball as the West Indies openers got off to a flying start. They were almost lucky to make the breakthrough, Overton having John Campbell caught down the leg side. From 83-0, the home side were reduced to 127-4. Nkrumah Bonner made an excellent 123 off 355 balls in an innings where the next highest score was 55. The Windies made England toil, keeping them in the field for nearly 158 overs. The tourists also lost the extra pace of Mark Wood, yet again injured – this time an elbow – and unable to bowl for the rest of the match.

    It’s fair to say that the Antigua pitch wasn’t a shining example of a good surface for Test cricket. It was flat, slow and lifeless. England lost Lees for six in the second innings, a disappointing debut for the Durham batsman, but Crawley and Root made serene progress and both made centuries. Everyone knows the class of Root, but Crawley’s innings will give him huge confidence and likely cement his place in the team for the rest of the year at least. On the fifth morning they were looking to score quickly to set up an unlikely chance of forcing a win so they lost regular wickets but Dan Lawrence scored an enterprising 37 off 36 balls to set the West Indies a target of 286.

    Reduced to 67-4, England sniffed victory but Bonner and Jason Holder dropped anchor and fairly calmly batted out what was always like to be a draw. Stokes was only supposed to be used ‘sparingly’ as a bowler, as he continues to recover from a side strain, but bowled 28 overs in the first innings and 13 in the second. Questions will be asked as to whether that was wise. Eyebrows will also be raised at England’s insistence on playing on until there were just five balls remaining in the match, when it was possible for the two captains to shake hands and agree on a draw much sooner – this sparked an angry response from Carlos Brathwaite on the TV coverage, who claimed that England had shown their hosts ‘disrespect’.

    Gareth Copley/Getty Images Sport

    The fact that England came anywhere near winning this match after being 57-4 on the first day will give them a boost. So, too, will the performance of Jack Leach, who was the main wicket taking threat and exerted the control that had abandoned him in Australia. Foakes has made a welcome (and long overdue) return to the Test team and his immaculate glovework is a joy to behold.

    Wood is unlikely to be fit for the second Test, with it starting just four days after the end of the first, so it looks like a choice between uncapped bowlers Saqib Mahmood and Matthew Fisher for Barbados – but those decisions can be made later. For now, England can reflect on a positive start to their tour of the Caribbean.