Key events
I’m afraid to say the rain is falling heavily and the bowler’s run ups are now covered. It does not look good. This might well be curtains folks.
Rain delays restart
The rain has returned at the Hagley Oval hence the delay to the re-start. It doesn’t look great as full covers are pulled across the square.
England make 153-6, New Zealand need 154 to win
20th over: England 153-6 (Curran 49, Carse 3) Curran swishes and misses at a tramline skimmer outside off but then picks up two over midwicket and collects four with a hack down the ground – effective but not pretty. See ya! A full toss from Duffy is middled for SIX with fast hands from Curran, he’s been dropped twice but is hauling England to a competitive total. A thick edge over the keeper brings four off the final ball, England recover to post 153-6.
Nineteen runs off the final over, Curran finishes on 49 and England get past 150. New Zealand bowled very well, seam and spin playing a part and England were spluttering at 81-5 in the 12th over. I reckon its a par score on this surface, we’ll be back shortly for New Zealand’s chase.
19th over: England 134-6 (Curran 31, Carse 3) Kyle Jamieson begins his last over with a wide and then oversteps the front line to gift a free hit. Curran swishes the freebie for two to leg. The batter is then given out LBW but the DRS shows the ball pitched outside leg! Curran survives to face the last over. Jacob Duffy is going to deliver it.
18th over: England 127-6 (Curran 27, Carse 2) Curran flays the returning Henry for four through the covers. Both he and Carse are busy, scampering twos as they try to haul England’s total to something challenging. DROP! That could be costly! Tim Robinson spills a simple chance on the cover point boundary, in and out of the bread basket.
17th over: England 116-6 (Curran 17, Carse 1) Brydon Carse joins Curran and gets off the mark with a fence to leg. Curran drives into the deep to keep strike. Three to go, England need to find some boundaries.
WICKET! Jordan Cox c Mitchell b Jamieson 16 (England 114-6)
Cox smashes the first ball back after the rain delay for four over long-on but then skies a cross seamer from Jamieson and Daryl Mitchell clings onto a steepling catch!
Good news! The covers are off and the rain has stopped. The players are on the way back out. Cox and Curran need to do something of a rescue job with 3.4 overs left in the innings and runs hard to come by.
Rain Delay Reading:
Raf Nicholson casts her eye and her quill over England’s batting woes:
Rain stops play – England 110-5
Gah! The players scamper from the ground as the rain gets heavier. I think they were due to get some, fingers crossed it blows over soon.
16th over: England 109-5 (Curran 15, Cox 12) Jacob Duffy back into the attack with five overs to go of England’s innings. There is a smattering of rain falling at the Hagley Oval now, the groundstaff look a bit twitchy on the boundary edge.
Cox splats a four down the leg side and a follow up ball flicks the pad and whistles away for four more. England will take them however which way. DROP! Curran is late on a pull shot and it goes high into the night sky, Duffy the bowler looks uncomfortable under it and spills the chance! It was a tough one in swirling conditions but he looks a bit embarrassed to have shelled it.
15th over: England 97-5 (Curran 13, Cox 6) Curran lofts Santner for SIX down the ground but is disappointed to miss out next ball on a drag down that he clobbers straight to the fielder in the ring at midwicket. Santner finishes with 1-20 off his four overs, indicative of the strangle his side have put on England.
14th over: England 90-5 (Curran 7, Cox 5) Bracewell with another parsimonious (insert Jeremy Coney impression) over. Five off it, neatly 25 minutes and 28 balls since England’s last boundary. Not ideal. Santner has rotated his bowlers well and they’ve executed to his field placings. The skipper is bringing himself back on for his last over.
13th over: England 85-5 (Curran 5, Cox 2 ) Jamieson returns and his over only costs two runs as England fail to rotate strike or find a release. New Zealand all over the visitors at the moment.
12th over: England 83-5 (Curran 5, Cox 1 ) Just five runs and a wicket off the over as Jordan Cox arrives at the crease in his new ‘finisher’ role. England quite a way off a finished target in this innings.
WICKET! Jos Buttler c Henry b Bracewell 29 (England 81-5)
Michael Bracewell gets the big one! Buttler is starved of the strike and plays the big shot but can’t find the fence, Matt Henry taking the catch at long on. England in strife now!
11th over: England 78-4 (Buttler 27, Curran 2) Sam Curran joins Buttler in the middle. Poor old Jos has been out there from the start but only faced 21 balls. Santner rattles through his third over and he has figures of 1-13 at the moment. Tidy.
WICKET! Tom Banton c Neesham b Santner 9 (England 75-4)
First ball after drinks and Banton holes out to long on! Comfortable catch from Neesham a few yards in from the boundary sponge.
10th over: England 75-3 (Buttler 26, Banton 9) Neesham returns and Banton just clears mid-off to get four. Heart in mouth for a second there. I think 150 is a par score on this surface, England are 75-3 at the halfway stage. You do the math(s).
Time for a drink. A slurp of luminous electrolytes at the Hagley Oval and a big fat shot of Douwe Egberts here in deepest Sussex.
9th over: England 50-2 (Buttler 26, Banton 3) England will want Jos Buttler to bat deep into this innings, its been hard work for the visitors so far in Christchurch. Santner is frugal once again, just four runs off the over, Banton gets off the mark with a lofted two over the infield.
WICKET! Harry Brook b Neesham 20 (England 64-3)
The debonair Jimmy Neesham comes into the attack and is bunted straightaway down the ground for SIX by Brook. Brook then attempts one of those roly-poly Rishabh Pant style Mr Tumble scoops over the keeper but doesn’t connect. A lot going on there for no run. SIX! Brook slams another big one over the leg side with glorious timing. He’s looking dangerous now…
GONE! Neesham gets his revenge with a cutter that foxes Brook, the ball hitting the knee roll and then deflecting onto the stumps. Brook feels hard done by but he was defeated by the bowler there. Big wicket!
8th over: England 64-3 (Buttler 25, Banton 0) Tom Banton joins Buttler in the middle.
7th over: England 50-2 (Buttler 25, Brook 7) A beautiful sunset breaks through the cloud above the Hagley Oval and Mitch Santner comes on for a a twirl. He’s such a miserly bowler, you’d hate to face his left-arm asphyxiation. Buttler and Brook use their crease and play off the back foot, picking off singles but no boundary to be found. Six off the over brings up Englands’s fifty.
6th over: England 44-2 (Buttler 20, Brook 5) Buttler flicks new bowler Kyle Jamieson for four over the leg side and then scoops over the keeper’s head for a one bounce boundary off the next ball. The lantern jawed man mountain Jamieson responds with a slower ball yorker and one speared into the ribs.
Jamieson stays with pace off approach and both batter’s nudge a single to finish the over. That’s the end of the PowerPlay, the home side on top at the moment.
5th over: England 33-2 (Buttler 10, Brook 4) Matt Henry pins Harry Brook on the pad with a nip-backer first ball! The bowler is convinced but the umpire says no. The go upstairs and it stays NOT OUT as the ball was slipping just over leg stump. New Zealand lose a review but are licking their lips on this wicket. There’s movement off the pitch and through the air.
Brook charges and misses a swipe into the leg side, his hand coming off the handle in the process. Henry has five dots and wicket but Brook spoils his over with a flicked four off the final ball.
WICKET! Jacob Bethell c & b Henry 15 (England 29-2)
He’s gone now though! Bethell mis-times a pull and it goes straight up, the bowler Matt Henry takes the skied catch. The fun is over for Jacob Bethell, a scratchy start, followed by a fluent few strokes and it’s all over.
4th over: England 14-1 (Buttler 10, Bethell 15) Duffy slings down a leg side wide and Buttler clips off his pads for a single. Close! Bethell cuffs a pull shot that just clears the inner ring. Ah, that’s a beauty! Bethell steps down and plays a ,majestic straight drive up and over the bowler for SIX! The next ball is stylishly plundered over midwicket on the pull for four! No you stop it.
A single off the last sees Bethell keep strike for the next and makes it 15 runs off the over.
3rd over: England 14-1 (Buttler 9, Bethell 2) Buttler gets a single off the first ball but Bethell can’t get off strike. Some free flowing shots go straight to the fielders and the pressure starts to rise. Play and a miss! Henry moves one off a length late and it is wafty-woo from Bethell. There we go – a tuck off the hip for two gets the youngster off the mark, that’ll settle him down a bit. Just three off the over.
2nd over: England 11-1 (Buttler 7, Bethell 0) Jacob Bethell gets an early visit to the middle. Don’t mention the A word! He starts with two dots, a play and miss and a thick outside edge. Good over from Duffy and New Zealand have the better of the early exchanges.
WICKET! Phil Salt c Chapman b Duffy 3 (England 11-1)
Salt hacks Jacob Duffy in the air to deep third and Mark Chapman takes an excellent low catch. England lose their first wicket early.
1st over: England 8-0 (Buttler 7, Salt 1) Matt Henry starts with the ball for New Zealand, he’ll be getting the white ball to jag about off the seam. Sure enough the first ball to Salt spits off a length and there’s a leading edge that flies over point for a single. Jos Buttler comes onto strike and smears his second ball over midwicket for SIX! Didn’t get all of it but enough to clear the fence. An early sight of the shoulder shimmy from Buttler.
Henry responds with some late movement that keeps Buttler tied down, a single and then a swing and a miss from Salt off the last ball narrowly avoids the stumps off the inside edge. Eventful start!
The players emerge onto the outfield of a blustery Hagley Oval. Looks like a double cable knit sort of evening to me. Let’s play!
New Zealand win the toss and choose to bowl first
Mitch Santner – not at all reminding me of the ‘Weatherfield One’ Deidre Barlow when he wears his oversized specs… wins the toss.
“Bit of grass so we’ve got to be smart with the wind,” says Santner. “But we think it’s going to play pretty well and will see if it does anything first up. We were close in the Australia series but think we played some good cricket. England bat deep and we know that. Try and take wickets throughout. Got to be smart. Try and get hit into the big side as much as possible.”
“We would’ve had a bowl, definitely,” says Harry Brook. “We got some stats that said it’s 50-50 either way. This is our main focus, with the T20 World Cup in the back of our mind. We always name our team early, to give people a bit of freedom and to let them prepare for the game.”
Like I said, don’t mention the little urn, no one else is. Nothing to see here.
As I namecheck Simon he sends me a lovely missive from the Hagley Oval. Well, lovely apart from the bit about the possibility of precipitation.
Kia Ora from lovely Christchurch. Such a lovely city to visit – everything’s wonderfully walkable, easily navigable and, at least until you get to the edge of town, completely flat (and those hills are also wonderfully walkable). It’s a sellout at Hagley Oval tonight and the grass banks that ring the ground are looking pretty full already, with half an hour until the start. It’s a beautiful ground but completely exposed and as such irredeemably useless in the event of rain – talking of which, there hasn’t been so much of a drop since England arrived here on Wednesday, but forecasts suggest that run – and, in cricketing terms, the runs – will end at around 9pm this evening. We’ll wait and see on that, it’s a near-perfect early evening as I type.”
Pitch black early morning here Burnto, I’m in my fleece and slippers nursing a vat of Kenco. But it is dry. So I win? Perhaps not.
Simon Burnton is our man on the ground, I hope he’s been having as nice a time as Harry Brook and his men ahead of this first match of the tour…
Brendon McCullum took his team to Queenstown in New Zealand’s Southern Alps where, in Harry Brook’s words, they were “just left to our own devices”. There was some hiking, a bit of go-karting and, inevitably, a lot of golf.
“We had an amazing time,” Brook said. “They’ve got some amazing golf courses down there and we were lucky enough to get on a couple of them. A couple of lads managed to get out and explore Queenstown. We had a few drinks here and there and team meals.
“We had a lot of fun – it was about trying to spend a bit of time together because we don’t really get that in the white-ball [team]. If you’re having a lot of fun off the field and enjoying spending time with the lads, then it’s going to be even better on the field. So I encourage everybody under mine and Baz’s leadership to just enjoy themselves.”
Preamble
James Wallace
Winter is coming here.
Hello and welcome to the start of England’s epic winter of cricket. To start things off, a three match T20I series followed by three ODIs against New Zealand. Today’s match will begin in about half an hour in Christchurch.
Don’t call it an Ashes warm up game. No honestly. Don’t mention the A word at all. Jacob Bethell gets a sparkling ton against the Black Caps today? Pay it never mind, there’s a T20 World Cup on the horizon, all roads do not lead to Perth on the 21st November. Ahem.
The coin will be tossed shortly but we already know the sides with both teams confirming their XI’s in advance.
New Zealand: 1 Tim Seifert (wk), 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Tim Robinson, 4 Mark Chapman, 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Michael Bracewell, 7 James Neesham, 8 Mitchell Santner (c), 9 Kyle Jamieson, 10 Matt Henry, 11 Jacob Duffy.
England: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Jacob Bethell, 4 Harry Brook (c), 5 Tom Banton, 6 Sam Curran, 7 Jordan Cox, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Liam Dawson, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Luke Wood.
It’s early for a Saturday morning here in Blighty but if you are tuning in then give us a shout in the usual way.
