New Zealand in England
With New Zealand arriving in England a couple of days ago, its time to have a look at what might happen in the upcoming series. The information below has been written exclusively for cricket-blog.co.uk so I hope you enjoy!
The performances of the New Zealand (”Blackcaps”) Test side on English soil have been nothing short of abysmal. Of 47 tests played, New Zealand has won just 4, with England winning 25 and 18 matches drawn. The Blackcaps have faired slightly better in One-Day Internationals (ODIs), winning 5 matches of the 15 played, England 9, with 1 no result. In the recent tour of New Zealand, England recovered from one down to win the Test series 2-1, though lost the series of 5 ODIs 3-1.
ENGLAND v. NEW ZEALAND – SOME MEMORABLE MOMENTS
TEST MATCHES
First Test, Hamilton, 2008
New Zealand consigned England to one of their most ignominious defeats, winning the first Test by 189 runs. The Blackcaps declared on 177-9, leaving England needing 300 from 81 overs. Kyle Mills stunned the tourists with four wickets in twenty-four balls. At 36 for 4 at lunch, England`s batsmen attempted to salvage a draw, but were defeated by Chris Martin`s bowling, 3 for 33. England totalled a mere 110.
Ryan Sidebottom, 3rd Test, Napier, March 2008
Left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom led England to a commanding position with career-best figures. 15 wickets fell on the second day. At the close of play, England was 91-2, a lead of 176, Sidebottom`s figures being 7-47.
The Nottinghamshire bowler took his tally for the series to 23, the most by an England bowler in a series against New Zealand. Despite a stubborn fourth-innings performance by the hosts, the required total of 543 was beyond their grasp, England winning by 121 runs and the series 2-1.
Mike Atherton, 94 not out & 118, Christchurch 1997
Atherton “carried his bat” in a poor first innings of 228, trailing New Zealand by 118 runs. The bowlers got England back in the game, leaving them needing 305 to win. Atherton led the way with a match-winning century.
Dennis Amiss and Tony Greig, 1st Test, Trent Bridge, Nottingham, June 1973
All appeared well in the 1st Test, England amassing some 250 runs, and dismissing the tourists for 97.
However, in the 2nd innings, Geoff Boycott was dismissed after 2 balls, followed in quick succession by his high-order batting colleagues. This brought Tony Grieg to the wicket, joining opener Dennis Amiss. Grieg went on to score 139, whilst Amiss carried his bat for 138 no, England declaring at 325-8, a lead of 478. This was just as well, since New Zealand batted superbly in the fourth innings, with Congdon scoring 176 and Pollard 116. The tourists totalled 440, succumbing by a mere 38 runs.
ONE-DAY MATCHES
Memorable ODI performances in England / New Zealand one-day cricket include:
England Batting
David Gower, Brisbane 1982, 158
Bill Athey, Old Trafford, 1986, 142 no
Keith Fletcher, Trent Bridge, 131
England Bowling
Vic Marks, 5 for 20, Wellington Reserve, 1984
New Zealand Batting
Nathan Astle, Christchurch, 2002
Astle scored Test cricket`s fastest ever double century off 153 balls, with the second hundred coming off just 39 deliveries. He was eventually out for 222.
New Zealand Bowling
Most expensive: M.C. Snedden, The Oval, 1983, 12 overs, 105-2, 8.75 runs per over
Given New Zealand`s spectacular lack of success, England are overwhelming favourites for the 5 Test series, best-priced 2/7 with William Hill, New Zealand at 11/1 with totesport, and a drawn series at 5/1 with Stan James. The 5-match ODI betting is likely to be more open, though prices are not widely available.
Cricket Being Played Again!
I havn’t talked much about the actual game of cricket over the past couple of weeks - too much new England shirts and Telegraph fantasy cricket to worry about!
However, the county season has begun under grey skies and on damp pitches (this April is rubbish compared to last year), with the County Championship and Liverpool Victoria cups. I tend not to cover county cricket in too much detail here, there is far too much going on and not enough time to keep on top of it all, but I also find some interest at the start of a season, and below I mention how the start of the season will affect some of the England hopefuls.
Sky Sports showed their first game of the season on Sunday between Durham and Yorkshire in the LV Cup, and they managed to pick a decent game with a surprisingly tight finish. Yorkshire managed to nearly win the game thanks to Bresnan and Shazad, after looking right out of it, and it was a really good game to see the end of. Hopefully we’ll have more decent county cricket, but in the sunshine! Twenty20 managed to hit the worst part of the summer last year but that is always good fun, although now it will forever be compared to the IPL/ICL - the first of which started last Friday.
There are a few test match places up for grabs, so the start of the season is an important one for some England hopefuls and those who need to cement their place in the team. Shah will probably miss out but needs to score some runs to put pressure on Strauss who himself needs to score (for the same county - no run outs there please!). If Ravi Bop can continue his storming start to the season his hat will be in the ring as well.
Flintoff needs lots of hours batting and bowling, the second part of which Harmison, Hoggard and Anderson also need. Mustard and Ambrose both showed promise over the winter tours, but one of them needs to step up to the plate, and a decent start to the county season might just help them do that. Add in players such as Plunkett and Mahmood who will harbour thoughts of getting back into the frame and it could be a fighting first month in the bowling department!
Also, my own games of cricket start in a couple of weeks time - I should probably have played a friendly or two, so I’ll go into the first league game a bit cold but hey, its too cold to play cricket at the moment!
The new England Adidas Cricket Shirts Revealed!
Ok, so this is a day early and the ECB/Adidas may not like me for doing this, but who cares.. I can reveal exclusively the new Test, ODI and Twenty20 shirts below. Top line - they look pretty damn nice, and I’ll be buying at least one of them. Pre-order them here
The Test shirt looks pretty smart, with a small red piping - but there is little they can do colour wise so that is about all I can say!
The ODI shirt is a dark blue, and has a real classy look to it. I remember we had a darker blue shirt in the past (I remember Hussain scoring a ton in it), but that also looked a bit messy and this looks so much neater, nicer and classier.
The Twenty20 shirt won’t get an awful lot of use seeing as we don’t play that much Twenty20 cricket compared to the other forms of the game, but again it looks really nice. To be honest i quite liked the red we wore in the Twenty20 world cup anyway, and this actually looks even better! And thank god it has sleeves unlike the Australian version!
So there we have it, the new England Adidas cricket kit, and I like them all. Remember they are being sold from next Friday (25th April), but if you want to pre-order, you can do so from Kitbag!
Pre-order the new England Adidas Kit!
As you may notice when visiting the blog, I’ve started the countdown to the new England Adidas kit being revealed and released with a few images and the like! Remember that this is the best place to come for all the info in the lead up to the big day!
In fact, “the big day” is two days - the reveal date that we first see the kit, and then a week later it will be available to buy. If you want to get in there early though, you can pre-order your kit straight from kitbag right now to ensure you are one of the first to receive the latest kit when it is available for sale.
When is it revealed? 18th April
When is it released? 23rd April
There you go, the two most important days in April right there! Keep checking back for more info as I get it!
Update - I have revealed what the kit looks like here, take a look!
When We’re Good..
I don’t know what is going on with the England team at the moment - it seems that when we’re good we’re very very good and when we’re bad we’re just bloody awful! The third test got off to a shocking start, but we recovered thanks mainly to KP, although Colly and Broad also helped out. Then with the ball we take an early wicket before giving them a chance, before Sideshow Ryan leaps into action and ends up with 7-47! The pitch looks a good one so there isn’t really a reason as to why both teams have relatively struggled with the bat in the first innings.
Fast forward to the second innings and watching Andrew Strauss possibly saving his international career with a not particularly fast, but telling big century. Quite why, when he got out, we continued batting baffled the commentators but I don’t see it as that big an issue, we’ve got plenty of time to bowl them out on the last day that if we don’t do so we won’t have deserved to win the series.
With Freddie talking a good game with his recovery though and aiming to be ready for the first test of the English summer, one of the current batsmen may have to miss out, so Strauss may not have completely saved himself just yet. It’s not clear cut though that he’ll walk straight back into the team, he’ll have to prove that he is ready before he waltzes back into the side..
Also, there is now just one day of test cricket left before we start wearing new Adidas England cricket shirts! As soon as there is some info/pictures and somewhere to buy these I’ll let you know so keep an eye out for that!
Can Something Interesting Happen Please?
Not much interesting has happened this week – plenty of news just none of it really that interesting:
Freddie is on the comeback trail (again)
Darryl Hair and the infamous test match between England and Pakistan is brought up (again)
Eng vs SA this summer might use third umpire referrals (rubbish, whats the point)
Final NZ vs Eng test match (not been the most inspiring series)
Still, it’s a Bank Holiday weekend so at least we have that to be thankful for! If England don’t win I’ll be disapointed, as NZ are without Oram and Mills, so their bowling attack will be a lot weaker. Oram hasn’t really got going with the bat yet so they won’t miss him there so much, but his control with the ball has been useful, and Mills has been taking wickets so that’ll be a loss for them. Tim Southee who is replacing Mills is a decent young bowler, I remember first seeing him in a Twenty20 game against Aus I think and he showed he is one for the future. I’m not sure they would have planned to bring him in this early, but he has a chance now to stake a claim for a place in their side when they come over here in the summer.
England might be without Colly, and Anderson is apparently still feeling his ankle which he went over on last week. They should both be ok, if not then Shah will come in for Colly, which would be a bit of loss as Colly has been doing a fair bit of bowling for us so far in the series, but we shall see.. If the wicket turns (and NZ will probably play two spinners), we may well see KP turning his arm over for a few overs.
It’s also the last test match England will play in Admiral kit, as from the beginning of April the Adidas contract will have kicked in! Lets hope we see some exciting new shirts soon!
