UKC

Wow, what is happening here. It sounds like an England batting colaspse. New Zealand 7-3. Wonderful start and Anderson yet to even concede a run. Come on England.

Oh, Williamson has just gone. New Bowler Potts too. 12-4!

27-5. This is looking ominous for N.Z. I bet Stokes never expected this in his wildest dreams.

36 for 6 now. Potts 3 for 6 on debut. I am grumpily nursing man-flu. Perhaps I'm hallucinating.

Absolutely unbelievable first morning for England. Bad luck for Jack Leach, that fall looked very painful.

Reminds me of a test in 1976 or so where Mike Selvey, also I think on debut and at Lords, reduced the great West Indies of that era to 40-5 or so at lunch on the first day.

It didn't stop them winning the series 5-0. Just sayin'.

jcm

So from this and another thread....

We have the finest armed forces, the finest test team, and the finest mums....

Let's just stop everything now and revel in that. 😁

England now 96 - 4 ................ 🙄

Make that 100 - 7

Kiwis could end up with a first innings lead! 

Getting tickets for day four or five used to be tempting fate but these days an England game getting past day three looks implausible!

Let’s see what happens today after yesterday’s batting collapse......

Getting past day 2 doesn't look certain at the moment. 

England need to learn from Mitchell and Blundell on how to build an innings and bat steadily. After such a good start for England it looks like the only thing that will stop New Zealand winning is rain..........

Magic from Broad, 2 wickets and a run out in three balls!

England 2nd Innings

Root 33,  Stokes 34

Total(45.1 overs)124-for4

Stokes played like a complete muppet and was fortunate to get a second life. They had two days for a modest target. 

I wouldn't care to bet on the result as the state of play stands tonight. Bairstow can join Stokes in the muppet show - what were they thinking? Nice to see Broad get a boost. Fingers crossed that Foakes can hang around long enough. 

Oh dear. Squeaky bum time! 40 to win and 5 wickets

 They can't throw it away from here, can they?

100 up for Rooooooooooooooot, and 10,000 Test runs as well

Great comment on Cricinfo "Love the mathematical symmetry: Root's innings runs (100) is the square ROOT of his career runs (10,000 = 100 squared)"

Thank goodness England can rely on Root. Amazing that he has got his 10,000 runs at exactly the same age as Alistair Cook. Uncanny.

Now that we need less than 10 runs I am going to stick my head above the parapet and state that we are now favourites to win this Test

TMS, on LW, getting the shipping forecast too, and Mr R passing 150.

Life is good sometimes 

On a valve radio I hope

On a tiny portable, with flat batteries, with lovely poor crackly reception,  on St Agnes, Scilly

A sad day indeed when LW is digitised 

The Root / Pope partnership was of the best which has been the foundation of the innings. Almost faultless. Root is up there with the greats. And big hundreds too! I can still remember when he came in to bat in his very first test. Pure class from the start.

A majestic innings from Root, wow! And well played Pope, not sure  why Stokes played in such a cavalier fashion.

Maybe Stokes was looking for a possibility of a win rather than pootering along for an inevitable draw. Imagine the impact if he'd knocked 100 off say 60 balls. The pitch was pretty benign and the strategy worth it in my view.

Oh dear, first Pope is out and now Root is a gonner for only three.

However, Bairstow and Stokes seem to doing quite well ...

Most boundaries ever in a test match. I'm going to need a lie down after this. 

Fantastic from Bairstow isn't it! (Hopefully didn't just jinx it!) 

How do you think the NZ bowlers feel? Tim Southee's bowling figures for the match are currently 221-1. 

I think we now know - leading by example - Bairstow was incredible. Amazing stuff. 

You jixed bairstow atleast 

What an amazing game. I of little faith though NZ would win once Root and Pope were out cheaply. Brilliant from Bairstow and from the injured Stokes! Carnage. 

I have a wind up Roberts and a real valve radio that I inherited. I have not fired up the latter for a few years.

In summary: blimey.

Highlights on to record.  I suspect I'll watch it more than once.

T.

When Joe was c&b I  thought that was it. I switched off the radio when tea was taken....what a massive mistake. And to think they were talking about dropping Bairstow!

Reminds me of the 1979 FA Cup Final when Arsenal were 2-0 up with five minutes to go, if memory serves, then United scored two to level it. Details are hazy, but I do remember that I gave up on Arsenal at that point only to come back from the kitchen and find that Sunderland had scored the winner.

[In truth details are way hazier than that, I think: I only remember for sure that Sunderland scored in the final minutes and that I had given up on Arsenal by that point.]

Just caught up with the highlights after listening on the radio earlier. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Very envious of my work colleague who made a spontaneous decision this morning to take the day off and go to Trent Bridge!

Blimey indeed!

As I sit here on a stunning evening, the Roaches glowing in the evening sun, a pint of Hen Cloud and Britain’s best pub fish and chips in front of me, an exhausted spaniel at my feet while I look at some Bairstow highlights on my phone, an unfamiliar feeling comes upon me.  There are some good things about being English sometimes…

Hop over to the politics section, Dave; we can soon take care of those feelings.

jcm

Back to earth with a bump. 0-3. This football is dreadful!!!

Not looking so bad from this side of Offa's Dyke, but Wales must stop conceding easy goals seconds after getting a hard-won equaliser!

Yes, I know, and I was exaggerating.  The spaniel is never exhausted but she is polite enough to pretend to be when she’s in a pub.

I have to give up R4 all day so that I can enjoy BBC2 highlights at 7.00 p.m.

Then John feckin Inverdale blurted out the result on the Queens club tennis coverage on the Red Button. 

Still enjoyed the highlights however. 

Players just want to be on the beach. It’s hard to blame them. I’d love to know who took a look at the football schedule and said ‘the trouble with this is that we don’t have enough pointless international matches’.

jcm