That’s Why We Love Test Cricket
The second test between Eng and NZ shows why Test Cricket still keeps our attention in the ever increasing seas of Twenty20 and the like. Those games provide a quick hit of interest, but none of the intrigue and see-sawing of momentum that we saw over the past few days at Old Trafford.
Innings 1 - NZ hold the power despite some stupid running between the wickets (what were Oram and Vettori thinking?!), with England then forgetting how to bat with any intention of scoring runs in reply. The Kiwi’s almost force the follow on, but we scrape through thanks to Broad and put them back in.
At this point it looks like it can only go one way - an NZ win. However, the balance shifts throughout the second innings as Monty puts huge pressure on the Kiwi’s and we knock them out with a chase able target to get with the bat. At this point the game could go either way - the pitch could play a part and we could bat like we did in the first innings, or we can be positive and go and win the game. We all know now that the latter is what happened, but it was such an intriguing day that you wanted to watch it all.
How many games of Twenty20 change during the game like that? There won’t be many that’s for sure, and that is why we still love test cricket.
We now have just over a week until the final test match - and during that time the England side will still be up for debate, with Collingwood looking on the dodgiest ground at the moment. The problem is I can’t see anyone in better form with international quality to bring in in his place. We shall see…
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3 Responses to “That’s Why We Love Test Cricket”
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I’d happily see Rob Key come back. Anyone else? Boycs had it right on tms…Hoggy gets dropped after one bad game, how many more chances are the batters going to get?
Don’t change a winning team…. any cricketer will know that there are times when you can’t score a run… (that is when you need the confidence of the captain & your fellow team mates) they all have the ability (proven many a time) keep the top 6 as it is I say as no-one obvious is currently scoring loads at county level…. don’t you remember what it was like watching a regularly changing England side of the 80’s and 90’s!? Some people….
What a fabulous example of Test cricket! Couldn’t agree more! 20Twenty is great but Test cricket is the real deal and Mr. Stanford and his cohorts need to be educated about the finer points of our game before they start trying to mess around with it and turn it into an Anglicised version of baseball. It’s not baseball, it’s not football and thank god! Long live the Test match!!!