Ball fired up as England wreck New Zealand
India or South Africa await in semi-finals Root and Buttler lay foundations for victory
A very impressive team victory by England. It was not a complete performance – cricket would not dream of allowing such a thing – but it was much improved on their sometimes nervy win over Bangladesh and enough to take them into the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy as winners of their group.
Even if England lose to Australia on Saturday and the two countries finish level on four points, the hosts will still top their group because of the primary tie-breaking rule: England will have two victories to Australia’s one. England will therefore meet the runners-up of the other group – likely to be India or South Africa – in the first semi-final here next Wednesday.
England not only defeated New Zealand but the conditions. The wind gusted up to 55mph, blowing over boundary boards and bowlers in their run-up. Three consecutive times from the River Taff End – with trees along the river swinging both ways, far more than the balls in this tournament have ever done – Mark Wood ran in and aborted his delivery, twice because the crosswind had blown him off course and once when the bails were swept off.
These winds were no use to anyone except fast bowlers from the river end, who banged the ball in short, to be hooked or pulled into the wind for no more than ones or twos. But England’s fast bowlers from that end were also to discover another advantage which they exploited – and just in time too, because New Zealand’s captain, Kane Williamson, had led his team more than halfway to their target and, along with Ross Taylor, was threatening to take his side to the top of this group. Then it would have been essential for England to win on Saturday or at least share with Australia another abandoned game.
Even Jason Roy made a contribution to this team victory, sharing an opening stand of 37 before another act of self-destruction – walking across his stumps during an over in which he had already played fine off drives for a single and four. Thereafter, in compiling 310, England resembled the weather, batting in strong gusts, while Jos Buttler approached gale-force in blowing New Zealand away.
It was not the ideal batting performance, because England kept losing wickets, no individual innings or partnership reached three figures, and four balls were wasted – which Buttler could have used as he would have been hitting to leg downwind.
Alex Hales made up for his opening partner, and drilled one spectacular six over mid-off, before he was deceived by Adam Milne’s slower ball. Joe Root nipped down the pitch to on-drive the left-arm spin of Mitchell Santner for two sixes. Exploiting either the wind to hit square of the wicket towards the Principality Stadium, or the short straight boundaries, England hit 10 sixes – whereas their bowlers avoided such indignity until Jimmy Neesham did so, by which time the game was almost gone from New Zealand’s grasp, and he was dismissed next ball.
Buttler at his best – and he is returning to it after a fallow half-year – is the entertainer at a children’s party: he enters and sprays foam everywhere, or icing on England’s cake. He had to play himself in first, which was no bad idea, and could not launch too soon, as he was running out of partners, whereupon he sprayed the ball around Cardiff in hitting 61 from 48 balls.
One shot was a flabbergaster even by Buttler’s standards, when he scooped a short ball from Trent Boult over his head for six. It sailed downwind – down river too if a TV gantry had not got in the way. It is tempting to say it was unprecedented, but Learie Constantine, the original limited-overs all-rounder, from the West Indies, who became Lord Constantine, claimed to have scooped a bouncer over his head in the Oval Test of 1939.
Perhaps the most encouraging feature of England’s team effort was that Jake Ball bounced back after being overawed at the Kia Oval. Far from being dropped, he was given the new ball which Chris Woakes would have used and, doubts banished, tore through the defence of the dangerous Luke Ronchi. Ball added the first maiden of the match to peg New Zealand back.
Williamson is an automatic car, going up through the gears without anyone noticing, so ingenious is his shot selection. With Martin Guptill, then Taylor, he took his team to the threatening position of 158 for two with all but 20 overs to go.
Already, however, England had discovered, if not a ridge, then an inherent unevenness in the pitch for fast bowlers from the river end: Liam Plunkett was first to locate it when he hit both Williamson and Taylor on the helmet in the 15th over. Keeping Adil Rashid, who was boldly restored to the team, for the other end, Eoin Morgan made the most of it when he turned to Mark Wood for his second spell.
A snorter from Wood reared at Williamson, flicked his glove and was caught by Buttler. It was the ball that took England into the semis. A stock ball perhaps, by the standards of what went on in the West Indies in the 1980s, but vicious for batsmen reared on today’s placid pitches. Plunkett and Rashid mopped up.