Wow, what a Test! One the best I've watched live, and thankful my data was sitting on 99.92% otherwise I would've actually watched the embarrassment that was NZ's fifth day.
It was a pretty even Test for the first 4 days and we finished off the tail quite well on the start of day 5 it seemed, but with NZ there is generally a danger of collapse when it comes to 4th innings, and I hoped we might have put that ghost away but in cricket very rarely does something not come back to haunt you like that. Full credit to England's bowlers for just blowing us away. It was one of the best fightbacks I've seen in Tests, and while we didn't 'drive home the advantage' when we were up at various points, this slightly undersells how great Root, Stokes & 2nd innings Cook were with the bat, and particular Stuart Broad with the ball. Will say now Ali is more effective than Craig, even if he has less 'tools' in his spin armoury, with the latter looking decidedly Bruce Martin-esque. I hope he comes back well in the 2nd match and this was mostly nerves but it's possible he's simply found out.
Looks like awful batting from our tail and same as always from our openers. Watling is a god, and why is our tail shunning the great strength that we used to have in frustrating opposition by making a lot of runs from 8 downwards? Turgid effort.
As mentioned, great match. Looking forward to the next immensely and hoping we tighten it up when it comes to our bowling post-new ball and the batting outside of Kane and Watling (if he plays
)
Composite XI of the match:
1. Latham
2. Cook
3. Williamson
4. Watling
5. Root
6. Stokes
7. Buttler+
8. Ali
9. Henry/Wood
10. Broad
11. Boult
Latham gets the openers spot mostly because I thought he batted nicely and the fact he ended up keeping for like what 95% of NZ's bowling innings he deserved some recognition - and didn't think he was far off Buttler's performance with the gloves. Cook, Williamson, Root and Stokes pretty obvious, and while Taylor scored an okay 50 Watling deserves to be in there somewhere for batting and overall he did better than both number 4s. Buttler's counter-attacking 50 on day 1 was more key than I first thought (he came in 5-191 remember) so he deserves to be in for that. Ali the better spinner on display and contributed vital runs. Henry had a gun first innings and 6 wickets overall. Thought Wood bowled pretty well and grabbed twice as many wickets as Anderson who otherwise bowled alright (but completely tired). Broad hit his straps and Boult was leading wicket taker and quite economical in the face of carnage, even if some of his spells were pretty terrible in their line and length. Without a doubt our best bowler atm.
