Key events
17th over: England 65-4 (Brook 6, Buttler 1) Jos Buttler joins Brook in the middle with plenty to do. England’s top order have failed to fire once again.
WICKET! Jacob Bethell c Foulkes b Smith 18 (England 63-4)
Gah! Bethell is caught on the leg side boundary after getting a start. A bit of a gift if truth be told, first ball after drinks and England lose their fourth wicket.
16th over: England 63-3 (Bethell 18, Brook 5) Time for a drink after Tickner sends down another frugal over.
15th over: England 62-3 (Bethell 17, Brook 5) Brook rubs salt in the wound with an exquisite cover drive for four. Nathan Smith responds with a beauty that pitches and leaves Brook, the batter definitely had a flirt at it as it passed by.
14th over: England 55-3 (Bethell 15, Brook 0) Tickner nearly picks up Brook! A charge and lofted drive from Brook and Santner is at full stretch at mid on but can’t cling on! A big moment in the match.
13th over: England 54-3 (Bethell 14, Brook 0) Harry Brook joins Bethell with another rescue job needed.
WICKET! Joe Root c †Latham b Tickner 25 (England 51-3)
Strangled down the leg side! Blair Tickner doesn’t care a jot as he picks up his first international wicket in two years!
11th over: England 49-2 (Root 24, Bethell 10) Duffy stitches together his second maiden…
10th over: England 49-2 (Root 24, Bethell 10) PowerPlay done. Foulkes’s fifth over is a good one, just two to Root off it. New Zealand in command so far in Hamilton.
9th over: England 47-2 (Root 22, Bethell 10) A quiet start for England as Bethell and Root rebuild.
8th over: England 45-2 (Root 21, Bethell 9) Root pulls Foulkes for four and the bowler serves up a wide ball to Bethell that is duly dispatched to the fence with a flowing blade.
7th over: England 32-2 (Root 16, Bethell 1) The frshly bleached Bethell is off the mark with a glide past point.
6th over: England 29-2 (Root 15, Bethell 0) Jacob Bethell is the new batter. Don’t go anywhere.
WICKET! Jamie Smith c Williamson b Foulkes 13 (England 29-2)
A mistimed pull from Smith and Williamson holds onto a swirling catch! England in a spot of early bother once again.
5th over: England 26-1 (Smith 13, Root 12) Tight lines from Duffy. Just a single to Root behind square off the over.
4th over: England 25-1 (Smith 13, Root 11) Jamie Smith clatters a pull shot to the midwicket fence for four and then picks up a single in the same region. Root continues his busy start with a single past point and Jamie Smith then plays a nonchalant flick for SIX onto the grass bank on the leg side.
3rd over: England 13-1 (Smith 2, Root 10) Joe Root is the new batter. He whips Duffy off his pads for two and then times the next one even better for four. Root then pings a drive through cover for four more! Ten runs and the wicket of Duckett off the over.
WICKET! Ben Duckett c †Latham b Duffy 1 (England 3-1)
Gone! Lovely ball from Duffy, Duckett doesn’t do much wrong but gets a feather through to the keeper. Here we go again?
2nd over: England 3-0 (Smith 2, Duckett 1) Zakary Foulkes and his fast arm start the next over to Duckett. Ripper! Foulkes is getting some late movement and he beats Duckett outside off stump before inducing a leading edge that luckily lands safe for the pint sized opener. Duckett used his feet and glides a single to deep point to open the scoring. Smith drives compactly for two next ball but misses out on a pull off the last.
1st over: England 0-0 (Smith 0, Duckett 0) Jamie Smith defends the first ball of the match… which is a darn sight better than how it went last time when Matt Henry splattered his stumps. He’ll be a big miss today for New Zealand. Duffy is full and there’s a hint of swing, five dots as he keeps Smith honest. Smith drives the last ball but can’t beat the ring. A maiden over to start.
The New Zealand players huddle on the boundary edge, the sun is out now in Hamilton. The forecast is actually pretty good, maybe the odd scattered shower. Duckett and Smith head out to the middle. Jacob Duffy will start with the new ball. Let’s play!
TEAMS:
England 1 Jamie Smith, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Joe Root, 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Harry Brook (c), 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Sam Curran, 8 Jamie Overton, 9 Brydon Carse, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Jofra Archer
New Zealand 1 Will Young, 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Kane Williamson, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Tom Latham (wk), 6 Michael Bracewell, 7 Mitchell Santner (c), 8 Nathan Smith, 9 Zakary Foulkes, 10 Blair Tickner, 11 Jacob Duffy
Play will start in ten minutes!
“In fact Matt Henry has a calf strain.” says Simon. “His thighs are fine.”
Which makes my mind immediately go to this. ‘The Edge is fine.’
New Zealand win the toss and choose to bowl first
No official word yet but the rain seems to have stopped and there’s plenty of blue sky about. In fact we go live to the toss right now…
Mitch Santner wins it and chooses to bowl first. He’ll be hoping for a rinse and repeat job on England’s top order.
Harry Brook confirms he would have bowled first and also that Jofra Archer is going to play!
“More than two years have passed since Blair Tickner last played for New Zealand, two years in which his life was thrown into chaos, his career into doubt, his family into crisis. “Obviously people haven’t seen me as much, but I feel like I’ve been doing all the right things for the last two years,” he said of his call-up, one game into the ODI series against England. “So nothing’s really changed. I’m still the same guy.” This is not true. So much has changed, and he is not the same guy.”
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the second ODI between New Zealand and England from Hamilton.
After defeat by four wickets in the first match England need to take this game in order to force a decider on Saturday. Captain Harry Brook showed he is in blistering form with the bat by slugging 135 off 101 balls in Mount Maunganui but the rest of England’s top order collapsed like a meringue under a Kiwi sledgehammer.
Unfortunately there’s a delay to the toss as there is some rain around in Hamilton. Fingers crossed it blows through in no time. Our man on the ground is Simon Burnton, he flings a missive and brings some team news:
“Afternoon/morning/whatever. Some team news today from the New Zealand camp: Matt Henry has been ruled out of this game with a thigh strain, which means Blair Tickner will make an emotional return to the XI in front of his family. Decent weather forecast, though it’s windy – as it has been since England arrived in the country – and Hamilton seems to have a habit of chucking some rain at you when you least expect it. It’s fair to say it hasn’t shown its best side to us: Monday was Labour Day here, a bank holiday, which meant the town centre was deserted and most things were closed, and then yesterday the weather was filthy and in the evening it was absolutely freezing. This morning I went for a pootle along the river, for some of which the sun shone and everything looked much improved. Hoping we see a bit more of it this afternoon.”
Apparently the rain is abating so hopefully we’ll get a toin coss and some action soon. Join me!
