England 226/4 in 47.2 Overs

Black point for Black Caps – 2005 tri-series final between England and Australia at Lord’s. The match ended in a draw and Nasser Hussain on the air had joked – This is almost like a win for England, because Australia will not lose the final! Yes, those were the days. Coming to the theory of relativity, let’s find something about the Kiwis – they don’t give up on catches! Especially after such a wonderful performance in the previous Test. But that’s why we say in cricket – 9 times out of 10, he/she would have taken that catch. Friday was that of 10 occasions. In the third over of the innings, Ben Duckett bowled Nathan Smith straight to third slip – only to see Henry Nicholls bowl a sitter. He was on 8 then and England on 8/1, having just lost Emilio Gay in the previous one. Then, in the 21st, Duckett reached one again. This time off the bowling of Mitchell Santner. For some reason, Daryl Mitchell was standing at wide first slip, in a really unconventional position. In a normal scenario, he would have swallowed it as the ball went straight there, at the conventional position, to his right. Being wide, he couldn’t even put a finger on the ball. Duckett was on 74 at this stage, well established and dangerous – England were running at 120/1. Given the way the pitch is behaving, as England found out on Thursday, the odds here are like Halley’s Comet – very rare. And if a chance comes and you miss it, you have to wait an age for the next one. Also, very un-New Zealandly, they just couldn’t find a way to stop the home side scoring, which comes as a surprise, given the way they blew away the hosts at the Oval. Is Matt Henry that big of a miss? None of the bowlers looked impressive and if the scoring fell in the last hour, it was more due to the fact that England had pulled the curtains for the end. Also, after being hit by a Jofra Archer bouncer earlier in the day, Blair Tickner suffered concussion symptoms and was ruled out of the match. New Zealand have a concussion replacement in the form of Zakary Foulkes, but only time will tell how good a replacement that turns out to be.