Charismatic

Really? I've always considered the limited overs game to be the more difficult formats for England. English pitches tend to favor safe batsmen who stand back and can play a bit of very safe, pedestrian cricket which works well in test format.

Gordon Barlow

Not always, of course!

Well done, NZ. England should have batted out the last day, today, but got careless.

Blade Down Under

Deserved result. They are a credit to cricket New Zealand. South Africa and Australia should take note.

I agree with earlier posts. It's a shame we've only had 2 tests against them. How a poor West Indies team gets more than them is unknown.

Oh well onwards to the ashes. Pity Starc and Co are far better bowlers than Southee and Boult.

msi geek

At least Alastair Cook has completed 9000 runs in Test cricket - a feat not achieved by any other English batsman.

chocolate cake

Definitely a deserved NZ win for sure especially with all the time lost to rain, but a poor performance from England not even getting close to batting out the 5th day.

Yeah, v concerning for the Ashes, I think Boult would get in the Aussie team, and keeper Watling when fit, probably Williamson but not too many others with Taylor out of form.

Yep, super effort, even if he's poor captain, there's no denying he's a class batsmen. There's a reason though why another English SA born cricketer hasn't been able to reach the same 9,000 target and most probably before him!
That decision, or more particularly ruling Pietersen out for the full summer could look very foolish if England go two against Australia, with both Bell and now Ballance failing to make runs.
Bell's averaging less 30 since his magical summer against the Aussies two years ago, which is clearly less than cricketing reasons why Peitersen was dropped.
Ballance on the other hand as a super average over the last year, however he's looked far from comfortable against NZ bowlers, and you'd fear for him against the Aussies, but who else is there I guess.

Charismatic

So England still appear to have 3 minor glitches to sort our: Batting, bowling and fielding.

Are we all thinking NZ likely win in limited overs?

chocolate cake

Yeah, sounds about right, though hopefully have the openers sorted now, with Lythe getting a ton and looking good, and Cook seemingly back in form.

I'd be very surprised if NZ don't win the ODIs, but at least England have dropped some of the underperformers from the World Cup.. Broad, Anderson, Bell, Ballance, and the new guys should have something to prove.

Tom H

Harsh on the bowling side of things bar the 4th day. Had we taken our catches, their 2nd innings would have been a lot lower. The attack was excellent in NZs second innings of the first test.

The ODIs won't be a whitewash. We'll win at least one of them now we've got a side that looks a better ODI team than the one that was sent to the world cup. In particular seeing Alex Hales and Ben Stokes in the team.

Blade Down Under

You're bang on the money with this about the odi

408/9. Great batting by Root and Buttler

Williamson just gone 94/3 New Zealand.

Can't see a Sri Lanka happening

Tom H

Finally, the Rashid that every Yorkshire folk know turns up for England

Very good win. I'm surprised they were put into bat first by McCullum considering the wicket was perfect for batting. Perhaps he remembered Wellington, not sure?

LauraNotts

Drat. When did the Poms learn how to play cricket?

#gonenative

Blade Down Under

Think he thought the wicket would swing a lot for his bowlers. Perfect for the likes of Trent Boult. Didn't work in the end

I was pleased to see Morgan get a decent knock. I also liked the aggressiveness play by the English. It wasn't the stop stop single approach. We look as if we want to target the 6 over run rate now instead of the 3.56 before. The Gung Ho approach of Australia is better suited to one day now.

Be an interesting second one dayer. Hell probably recall Southee if fit.

Tom H

I hope he does


If we go all out attack on him, we'll score runs. We smashed him all over the place in the first test. He may get line and length sometimes but that's it. Mediocre batting rather than good bowling saw him get 7 wickets at Wellington with probably 2 of those wickets were down to the bowling.


I think the new coach actually demanded us that we play aggressive now and change our ways. That's the sort of game the likes of Morgan, Root and Buttler want. Go out and attack from the first ball. We needed that approach in the world cup, not the block block single block approach that definitely lost us the game v Bangladesh. Gone are the days where a target of 250 is a tough one to chase, it's now getting the 350s to set. You don't need 10,000 pages of data to spot the obvious

chocolate cake

Yeah, no need to check the data this time.

Super performance batting, strangely with the exception of Rashid on his new debut, none of the other new faces contributed at all.
Good knock from Rashid, which obviously boosted his confidence with the ball, I hope he gets a chance in the Ashes, ridiculous that he missed out in the spin friendly conditions in the Caribbean.

Blade Down Under

Once again the rain gives New Zealand a victory. Just like the semi final that stopped South Africa scoring in the 400s.

They probably would have won anyway given the extra wicket but still, stupid that an assigned day/nighter requires the silly dl method. Again another favor to the Kiwis.

Oh well, we'll never know.