New Zealand v England First Test, Day Two Report Card
Featuring canny mixes and Dionysus off the short run
Canny Mixes
Grade: B+
Alas, I didn’t have much time to watch today’s play, as I was travelling and, hence, stuck in airports, planes and family gatherings for the most part.
I did, however, get to hear Glenn Phillips call himself a ‘weasel’ after he missed a cut shot as New Zealand hustled to 348 all out, so it wasn’t a complete waste.
“Is that score over par or under par?” the fine folk at Wisden asked on social media. Why is it always about golf with this England team??
Then I got to watch Ben Duckett perform a mad assault on Bannerman’s record, scoring one hundred percent of the runs in England’s innings for a good chunk of time, before eventually foolishly giving Jacob Bethell some strike against debutant bowler Nathan Smith.
Smith got his revenge, bowling a canny mix of seaming deliveries and no balls that left Bethell and Joe Root utterly bewildered and, ultimately, out. England 3/45 at lunch and in all sorts of bother.
Dionysus Off The Short Run
That’s when I tapped out for the day.
Although not before locating my newest book in the airport, where it was inexplicably filed in the Biography section. (Although I guess it’s a whole heap of mini-biographies, so maybe the airport folk aren’t so crazy after all.)
Do you want 37 mini-biographies of the greats of Australian cricket and the years/decades when they were at their peak? For the price of one normal biography? What a deal!
Anyway, that was all. Time to catch up with the family, eating, drinking, playing Marco Jansen in my brother’s swimming pool.
Here’s what I missed, in limerick form:
England’s first innings in nosedive
Until New Zealand decided they’d contrive
A Harry Brook ton,
Spilling chances for fun.
Dropping him one time is bad, but five?