BATTERED & BOOZED
Dropped catches and the ball landing in a fan’s pint sum up a bad day for England as Kiwis make them pay at Trent Bridge
ENGLAND were left ruing missed opportunities and a spectator’s pint after New Zealand hit back with a thunderous opening day at Trent Bridge.
Once again it was the Kiwi’s first-Test heroes, centurion Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell, who did most of the damage with an unbroken 149-run partnership.
But four dropped and missed catches of varying difficulty ended up costing England on a pitch that is probably more batsmanfriendly than they thought at the start of the day.
And one of Mitchell’s two sixes landing flush in a fan’s glass of cider, with England bowler Matty Potts ( far right) complaining that the dunking had removed the swing from the ball.
It certainly wasn’t the home side’s day. And it meant for the second Test running the captain who won the toss was left wondering if he had made the right decision.
At Lord’s, Kane Williamson chose to bat under heavy skies and saw his team 39-6 at lunch.
There was no Williamson here, a positive Covid test on the eve of the game ruling him out, but his stand-in Tom Latham would have been grateful Ben Stokes made the call to bowl first as the Kiwi batsmen made hay on day one to finish on 318-4 in bright Nottingham sunshine.
It is easy to see why Stokes opted to bowl. There was a decent covering of live grass on the pitch, cloud cover, a confident bowling attack, and a fragile Kiwi top order whose best batsman was missing.
But instead of a flurry of wickets inside the first session there was a flurry of boundaries, with New Zealand racing past 100 for the loss of just two wickets, and the second of those was a bit of a gift to say the least.
These are the risks England are determined to take though and while they got their rewards in London, they were not so fortunate in the East Midlands, with their fielders repeatedly collecting the ball from the ropes.
Yet the day could still have been different had England taken full advantage of the session between lunch and tea when they got the ball moving.
A supreme display in the field in the first Test, when every catch was taken and seemingly every throw hit the stumps, was not repeated at Trent Bridge and it cost them.
South Africa great AB de Villiers felt moved to tweet: “Not nearly enough emphasis is put on the importance of catching, especially in Test Cricket. Often the difference between 250 all out and 400+.” He is right.
Zak Crawley had taken a confident catch at second slip to remove Will Young for 47, but he was a little too zealous in diving across and in front of Joe Root and dropping Henry Nicholls on 17.
Root was then the culprit, first for spilling a straightforward catch at slip when Mitchell had made just three – the pain of that drop continues – and secondly for trickier one off a Blundell cut when he was on 47.
It is amazing how confidence ebbs away from a team. And with the second new ball Stuart Broad teased an edge from Blundell only for Crawley and Jonny Bairstow in the slips to simply watch it as it flew between them.
The Kiwi pair then shut up shop and made sure they got into the pavilion without any more trouble and can go again on day two, while England will hope to take whatever chance comes their way.