New Zealand v England Second Test, Day Two Report Card

Featuring tongue twisters, big bags of important cricketing milestones and imprecise arithmetic

Tongue Twisters
Grade: B+

Could New Zealand bat sensibly on the second day to restore the Test to parity? Unlikely. But they could surely, with a decent amount of effort, restore the contest to near-parity, right? Wrong.

Nearish parity? Go away.

Instead, resuming on 5/86, Tom Blundell was out with the score still less than a hundred, and nightwatchman Will O’Rourke followed a run later, for a heroic 26-ball duck.

An O’Rourke tongue-twister for you to deploy while at the Basin Reserve:

Will Will O’ wallow in Wello willow li’l woes? Will O’ will.

Big Bags of Important Cricketing Milestones™
Grade: B+

While you were getting your mouth around that, New Zealand’s last three wickets scrambled their way to 125 all out, a definitive total of imparity, when compared to England’s 280.

By ‘last three wickets’, I mean, of course, the ‘third last wicket’, because, speaking of totally impare thoughts, Gus Atkinson once again reached into his Big Bag of Important Cricketing Milestones™ and this time pulled out a sublime hat-trick to close out the innings (bowled, caught at gully from a brutal bouncer, lbw). Good stuff from Gus Hat-trick-son.

BAD AI IMAGE OF: Gus Atkinson picking up his Big Bag of Important Cricketing Milestones from the airport

Of course, Atkinson’s just about emptied out that bag in his first year of playing Test cricket, like a greedy child scarfing down all his Easter chocolate the morning he receives it.

Who’s going to clean up the mess when Gus Atkinson, melted cricketing feats all over his face, vomits back up all these milestones?

Not me, I promise you.

Imprecise Arithmetic
Grade: C