New Zealand v England Third Test, Day Three Report Card

Featuring Newton’s third law of Antipodean day three cricket precipitation, fun-eating monsters and humourless ball-tracking

Newton’s Third Law of Antipodean Day Three Cricket Precipitation
Grade: C

With rain about for the morning session, the only session that didn’t coincide with the ongoing Australia-India Test, it seemed for a moment as if I might not get to view much at all of this third day.

But, like an idiot, I had forgotten about Newton’s third law of Antipodean day three cricket precipitation: For every rain delay in Brisbane, there is an equal and opposite end to rain in Hamilton.

And so, as rain tumbled down in one Test, it ceased in the other, and I was able to watch pretty much all of the New Zealand-England Test.

A shame, then, that it wasn’t much of a contest, with New Zealand spending a good chunk of the day mounting an unassailable lead. They then spent the next chunk of the day really building on the unassailability

Finally, they spent the last chunk of the day adding a smidgen more unassailability, just to be safe. Presumably they reasoned that there was a genetic possibility that one of the myriad of New Zealanders that Team England had squirrelled away within their ranks might turn out to be an Edmund Hillary descendant.

Fun-Eating Monsters
Grade: D+

Kane Williamson was the key to unfurling these giant unassails. Williamson, a notoriously petty and small man, had seen Steve Smith score a century the day before to move past him in career tons, so naturally was determined to draw level again.

And he did, eventually racking up 156. England, growing increasingly desperate, resorted to more and more bizarre tactics: far too many overs of Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook taking the new ball, Ben Stokes tearing his hamstring in half for some reason.

None of them worked. Yet New Zealand refused to declare, batting stubbornly on to force England to give Tim Southee another touching guard of honour after their miscalculated earlier touching guard of honour.

Southee, needing two sixes in his final innings to reach the improbable tally of a hundred such blows, was instead caught in the deep by renowned fun-eating monster Zak Crawley, leaving him stranded on 98, level with Chris Gayle.

BAD AI IMAGE OF: A fun-eating monster

To be fair, you’d take ‘level with Chris Gayle’ for pretty much any batting stat the game has to offer.

(Okay, maybe not ‘speed between the wickets’. But any of the others.)

Humourless Ball-Tracking
Grade: D-