Rubber Puppets
Grade: C
After the tedious rain scuppered everybody’s plans for a day three finish, the two sides returned to give a day four finish a serious crack.
Remember way back during the first over of this Test, when England inexplicably failed to lose a wicket, I made the point that New Zealand were badly missing Mitchell Starc? Here, in a small fourth innings run chase, they were similarly badly missing Travis Head.
Having said that, Glenn Phillips did his best Head impression. (Like one of those Spitting Images puppets, I suppose?) He thrashed at things with gusto, carefree about the prospect of losing his wicket, sensibly reducing the game to scoring as many runs as possible before his knock was inevitably terminated. A metaphor for life itself, perhaps.
But nobody could stick with him. Not even first innings hero King Kyle Jamieson. And so New Zealand were bowled out for 138, still 116 runs short of victory. England take a 1-0 lead in this series.
The instant the match ended - and, to be honest, from a few days before then - complaints about the pitch surfaced. Or perhaps complaints about the surface were pitched.
I dunno. I reckon any Test in which there’s no need to call on Jacob Bethell’s ‘bowling’ is a good one. (This is obviously an unfair jab at Bethell. In an ideal world, I’d be making this joke about Marnus, but he foolishly wasn’t taking part in this match.)
Having said that, perhaps in a milestone Test you do maybe want more than one innings in which the number of runs scored is higher than the number in the milestone.
Lots to ponder. (Or, y’know, forget about until the second Test. Either works.)