Key events
Drinks: England better, NZ still in charge
69th over: New Zealand 295-5 (Mitchell 47, Phillips 3) Root responds to Phillips’ arrival by bringing back Archer. You can see why, but is it wise? He’s only been off for 20 minutes, and the second new ball is less than an hour away. Maybe it’s just for two overs. Archer duly hones his bouncer and dumps Phillips on his backside, where he spent much of Wednesday evening. And that’s drinks, with England much improved today – more orthodox, more accurate, more threatening – but NZ still leading by 395 runs. They could declare now and win by a street, unless Harry Brook goes bananas.
68th over: New Zealand 293-5 (Mitchell 46, Phillips 2) So here is Glenn Phillips, the batsman of the series, getting off the mark with a confident clip for two. I was at the Oval on Wednesday (many thanks to my son Dan) and Phillips was in a different class from the rest with his decisiveness, not to mention his courage in the face of Archer’s ferocity. If he’d been in the top five at Lord’s, New Zealand might now be closing in on a series win.
67th over: New Zealand 290-5 (Mitchell 46, Phillips 0) Root went for Sonny Baker rather than Fisher, preferring puppyish pace to seasoned precision. But he was wary with his field, posting only one slip. The ploy misfired at first as Baker found some bounce and Mitchell was able to ride it and guide the ball into the wide open space between slip and gully. But then Root, after a chat with Duckett, put himself at leg slip, and it worked a treat. A small triumph for Rew too.
Wicket! Blundell c Rew b Baker 16 (NZ 290-5)
The leg slip comes good! Blundell flicks a full ball off his toes, Root spills it, but Rew cleans up.
66th over: New Zealand 284-4 (Mitchell 41, Blundell 15) Two more singles off Tongue’s over. A Sky caption confirms that the ball has been moving more off the seam today than yesterday, so Matt Fisher could be effective.
65th over: New Zealand 282-4 (Mitchell 40, Blundell 14) Singles for both batters and when Archer tries a bouncer he bangs it in too short, so it sails away for four byes. England have already conceded more extras in this innings (16) than New Zealand did in the previous one (9), so the total score in that department so far is England 9, NZ 69.
64th over: New Zealand 274-4 (Mitchell 38, Blundell 12) Mitchell nudges a single, making that last factoid instantly obsolete. Tongue tries to york Blundell, who digs the ball out of his feet, then takes one on the hip bone and winces. Tongue tries the yorker again, and again it gives Blundell no bother. Root moves from slip to leg slip, a ploy he has surely over-used in this game. Keep it simple!
63rd over: New Zealand 273-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 12) The sun comes out as Archer continues. He dishes up his first freebie of the day, allowing Blundell to leg-glance for four. Blundell, always busy, even after a hard day’s standing up to the stumps, has raced into double figures and scored all the runs in this partnership.
62nd over: New Zealand 269-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 8) Tongue, not at his best in the first innings, is in the groove now. He keeps Mitchell quiet and collects a maiden.
“Looks like the weather at the Oval is on a par with us here in Fuerteventura where I’m enjoying my retirement on paradise island,” says Andy House. It’s all right for some. “No question that an awful chain of events has led to England fielding a team that has proved no match at the Oval for an excellent and battle hardened Kiwi side.
“Call me old fashioned, however but I cannot agree with the general Guardian stance that Stokes and Atkinson have been unfairly punished and that somehow the England team management have brought this crisis upon themselves.
“Actions have consequences and whilst none of us expect either the captain of the England team or his players to be saints, we do expect a certain level of responsibility and common sense from our millionaire elite cricketers not least after the debacle in Australia where I witnessed the final humiliation in Sydney.
“Truth to tell, Stokes and Atkinson thoroughly deserved to be dropped and they owe their team mates big time in the likely 3rd test decider after letting down their fellow players the management and the fans so badly.”
My stance, for what it’s worth, is not that Stokes and Atkinson were unfairly punished. It’s that their team-mates were unfairly punished. In a team sport, suspensions seldom make sense.
61st over: New Zealand 269-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 8) Jofra, bowling 87mph, finds the edge yet again as Blundell goes back and pokes with half a bat, but the ball drops short of Root at first slip. If only England had started like this on Thursday morning.
60th over: New Zealand 267-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 6) Blundell, who loves joining Mitchell to torment England, tucks Tongue for two and cover-drives for three, uppish but safe.
“Good morning.” says John Starbuck. “I was wondering if James Rew, unfortunately drafted in a bit too soon, should change his name to Roux, seeing it’s been something of a mixture so far.” Ha.
59th over: New Zealand 262-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 1) Classic Test bowling from Jofra, who eats left-handers for breakfast. He sauntered in, landed the ball on off stump and angled it away. This time Brook – back in his comfort zone at second slip, not first – took a comfortable catch. Archer then kept it tight to the right-handed Tom Blundell, and England nearly nabbed another wicket as Blundell took a silly single to Ben Duckett, whose throw was on target until it landed on an old pitch and turned into an off-cutter.
WICKET! Nicholls c Brook b Archer 121 (NZ 261-4)
Justice for Jofra! And redemption for Harry Brook.
58th over: New Zealand 261-3 (Nicholls 121, Mitchell 37) At the Vauxhall end, Root goes for experience in the form of Josh Tongue, who has played 11 Tests. He too starts strongly, finding bounce and movement. Henry Nicholls may have a hundred but he hasn’t got his eye in today, and he takes a blow or two to the fingers. But after having some treatment, he calmly dabs a single to get down the other end. He’s the Ollie Pope figure for NZ, the guy they’d already discarded, but they trusted him to replace Kane Williamson and he’s actually been (whisper it) an upgrade.
Dropped!
57th over: New Zealand 260-3 (Nicholls 120, Mitchell 37) You remember those pictures of Jofra howling with frustration last night? He’s already been doing it again. His first ball is a beauty, squaring up Daryl Mitchell and drawing the edge – which is dropped by Harry Brook at slip. Brook has had such a poor match, bringing one great shot when England needed him to be the senior pro. Archer beats Mitchell next ball, and has a shout for LBW against him (going down). Some of the blame belongs to Root, who started with only one slip, then moved himself back in there afterwards. Along the way, the batters calmly collect eight runs, four from that drop. It’s a cruel game.
The players are out there. Joe Root is chatting to Matt Fisher, whose batting gave England a glimmer of hope yesterday morning. And the ball is with Jofra Archer, who will come gliding in from the pavilion end.
England have also missed Ollie Pope. He was the odd-job man under Stokes, ready to take over as the captain or the keeper, and doing both jobs well enough to attract little comment. With hindsight, he would have been a better understudy for Jamie Smith here than poor James Rew. As would Jonny Bairstow.
On Sky they’re talking about … Ben Stokes. He’s been missed as a captain, standing at mid-off, exuding energy, bigging up the bowler with his belief. He’s been missed as a bowler: this morning, at 250 for three, he would be handing the ball to himself. And he’s even been missed as a batter. Scratchy as he has been recently, he can still stick around, as he showed in Australia. With the bat, Ben Stokes has turned into Ben Foakes – the designated driver in a team of drinkers. The whole package means that when he’s there, England have 12 or 13 players, and when he’s not, they have nine or ten.
If you’d like some action right away, there’s a World Cup match just starting in Southampton. It’s another episode in a long-running series: David v Goliath. Do join Megan Maurice to see if Babette de Leede’s bowlers can rattle Australia’s big names.
Preamble
Morning everyone, or should that be hello darkness, my old friend? For England supporters of a certain age, this match has been a flashback to the Eighties. First the management picked the wrong response to Ben Stokes’ and Gus Atkinson’s big night out, suspending them when Harry Brook had merely been fined for a worse offence, perhaps because the ECB was afraid of looking weak. Then, just as fortune favours the brave, so misfortune homed in on the faint-hearted.
England lost the Player of the Match from Lord’s, Ollie Robinson, to injury and their wicketkeeper, Jamie Smith, to the birth of his second child. Suddenly the team had no spine – no captain, no keeper, no new-ball pair. The selectors put their faith in what Micky Stewart, whose name is on the pavilion at the Oval, once called “a lot of inexperience”. Joe Root found himself not so much the stand-in captain as the babysitter.
The kids were all right at first, then fell apart as Root tried too hard to play the Stokes way and get funky with his fields. The New Zealanders, who are known on the circuit as nice guys, have been far more orthodox and more efficient. By the end of yesterday the crowd was witnessing an unprecedented spectacle: the England Lions being fed to the Christians.
