The first game starts in a matter of hours with England having named their line up for the first test.
Ben Stokes
James Anderson
Stuart Broad
Harry Brook
Zak Crawley
Ben Duckett
Ben Foakes
Jack Leach
Ollie Pope
Ollie Robinson
Joe Root
Weather isn't looking great for day 1 but may be better for the rest of the weekend. Its a day/night game so the pink ball will be in use which the bowlers have been critical of.
NZ are without Boult, Henry and Jamieson so are likely to have a seam attack of Southee, Wagner and a couple of debutants but have plenty of quality in the batting with Latham, Conway, Williamson, Mitchell and Blundell, the latter two scoring a ton of runs in the summer.
I fully expect England to eye up scoring at 6 an over when they bat to move the game along. Its a big series for the openers who are at most risk of losing their place to Bairstow in the summer.
New Zealand vs England Test series
posted on 28/2/23
Yeh that was such a blatant wide
posted on 28/2/23
Facking hell
posted on 28/2/23
Disappointed to lose but fair play to NZ to turn that around. There will be plenty of focus on the declaration but I don't think Stokes or McCullum will really care.
The Brook wicket was crucial and such a bonus for them. I know they had a shocking run out too but I'd have fancied Brook to outscore Bracewell.
posted on 28/2/23
There's only a handful but the criticism of "Bazball" is dumb. For one, England didn't wrecklessly chase down the total. Stokes dug in and played a supporting role to Root who looked supreme.
It wasn't Bazball that caused the run out and just because England did it a few times in the summer, it doesn't mean its easy to chase over 250 in the 4th innings of a Test match.
posted on 28/2/23
It was clearly a tie.
posted on 28/2/23
it was, the previous ball to the wicket was way down the leg side. it was wide in any form of cricket
posted on 28/2/23
Anyway back to the game. England are still 2 batsmen short of a decent test side.. Crawley and Pope ain't up to it.
Pope was like a cat on a hot tin roof when he came out to bat. hes had 30 tests now. the nerves should have gone.
posted on 28/2/23
Need spinners.
posted on 28/2/23
Its amazing the cricket in Bangladesh starts to tomorrow at 6 am. odis and 20/20s
posted on 28/2/23
comment by bestoftherest2021 (U22523)
posted 3 hours, 53 minutes ago
Anyway back to the game. England are still 2 batsmen short of a decent test side.. Crawley and Pope ain't up to it.
Pope was like a cat on a hot tin roof when he came out to bat. hes had 30 tests now. the nerves should have gone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah Pope seems so jittery when he first comes out to the crease. He's been good under Stokes though so deserves a run. Think he's averaging just under 40 plus he's vice captain. Needs to put the charging down the wicket away as well against the seamers.
Crawley isn't good enough though. The delivery he got on day 4 was a corker and would have got most out but he also doesn't look solid enough to be able to deal with good balls. I'm not hugely keen on opening with Bairstow but he needs to come back in and I'd rather it was for him than Foakes.