Ball One – Something old, something new
The record books were scoured for the last time England fielded three debutants (2017) and made five changes in-series (1959) which probably wasn’t in the plan even two weeks ago. Whether Dermott’s mum was advised to keep an eye on Ceefax page 340 is not known, but such is the turmoil in the camp, nobody would be surprised.
The big screen scoreboards at The Oval have gone for a black on white colour scheme, somewhat unusual and never seen before (at least by me) here. I think it was the St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury that favoured that set up, but I may be wrong.
Of course, I still instinctively look a little to the left of where the current scoreboard is situated to where the old plates and pulleys edifice once sat, the two brothers who operated it known for fastest hands in the West (well, South West London), rattling up the runs on the tins as the batsmen turned for the second. I sat there, just in front of it, 26 years ago as Neil Fairbrother knocked up 300 in a day in the 1990 run fest season.
Ball Two – Sup up, Gentlemen
Hydration breaks are a thing in the FIFA World Cup and, as night follows day, will become a thing in the Premier League and beyond – it’s the adverts natch. The reaction of fans is, at best, mixed, football not an activity that lends itself to natural suspensions in action, the game largely, even post-VAR, fluid.
Drinks have been a regular feature in cricket, a game of discrete events, for many years and they’re definitely not going away. But if football can offer refreshment to its players (and to its tactics) in three minutes, does cricket need at least double that time?
With all sports looking to meet the demands of younger audiences for faster entertainment, surely a couple of extra overs per day can be found by limiting the duration of breaks? That’ll mean we’ll only be four or five overs short, come the close, instead of the usual six or seven.
Ball Three – How green was my dally
It was disappointing to be met with mizzle at the ground this morning, as one of The Oval’s lesser remarked delights is its contrast with its immediate environs.
At Lord’s, you walk through Regent’s Park (or, at minimum, you sense it) and there’s the Nursery Ground over your shoulder. The sloping greensward is still striking, but it’s part of a narrative, a punchline for which you have been set up.
Not so The Oval, hemmed in all all sides by the urban, indeed with its gasometers still looming, albeit repurposed, the industrial too. Entering the ground has always had a touch of “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”.
It took until the lunch interval for the green to glow as the midsummer sun shone on this historic field. I’ve never been much concerned about parks – too many dogs apart from anything else, and I’d rather sit by the river or outside a pub – but there’s plenty of the therapeutic in the sight of white clad men on an immaculate lawn. I understand the objectors to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’s expansion plans a little more now.
Ball Four – Root settles down
With some mitigation to acknowledge, Joe Root was the worst England captain I’ve ever seen during the last couple of years of his long tenure. But, just as Bazball freed up his batting – too much so for a short while – there’s evidence that it has done the same for his captaincy. Despite some wayward bowling, most of it unpunished and one pie picking up a wicket, Root did not go too defensive too early. Not only is that the best strategy to take wickets, it’s also the best to support an inexperienced attack.
It’s hard to think of the still boyish Root as an eminence gris (he’s the same age as Geoffrey Boycott was when he ran out Derek Randall and scored his hundredth hundred), but that’s what he is, markedly so in this XI. It’s hard – nay impossible – to imagine him taking the gig full-time, but, if Ben Stokes cannot push his body, his mind and his patience any further, there are no candidates banging down the door. Perhaps he might fancy an encore after all?
Ball Five – 166/4 at tea off 49 overs: it feels like it too
There will be stats somewhere I’m sure, but I cannot recall two sessions of Test cricket with so many deliveries going down the legside. Roll in some poor shots from the Kiwis and, on a blameless pitch, the standard has not been great. I’ll excuse James Rew, whose footwork looks very classy indeed.
As to why this should be so, maybe the visiting batsmen are still a bit spooked by the (officially) unsatisfactory Lord’s pitch. England also have five different men in the XI, of whom perhaps only Jofra could have expected to play prior to last orders in Chelsea a fortnight or so ago.
Sitting outside the press box in the Oval crowd, you feel a twinge of ennui shared by the punters. The public are attentive rather than rapt, the inevitable glacial over rate (not helped by Joe Root reviving his habit of jogging a 100 yard return trip, mid over, to confer with his bowler) hardly helping. Harry Brook’s school fete dobbers may help that, but his three overs was hardly the cricketing equivalent of Lionel Messi’s three goals.
Both the iconic figure of Bazball (its captain, Ben Stokes) and its high priest, the truest of the true believers, Zak Crawley, are absent and, though it’s too early to say definitively, the electric crackle appears to have gone out of the air.
Ball Six – Not a day packed with quality cricket
“Take each game as it comes”. “Play each ball on its merits”. “It’s not the last ball that counts, it’s the next ball”.
Sport overflows with these clichés because they’re both true and far harder to deliver than meets the eye. Though Daryl Mitchell was edging towards adherence and Tom Blundell did rather more, it was Glenn Phillips, the only visiting batsman to emerge with any credit from the Lord’s debacle, who simply hit the four ball for four and blocked the other ones. With plenty of four balls on offer, he cashed in on a tiring, and somewhat green, attack.
It is probably germane to point out that we’re talking about the wicketkeeper and the allrounder here, players whose contribution to the team is not limited to batting (and, to be fair, catching). Get it wrong in one innings, and there are repeated opportunities for redemption, a fact that can ease the tension across the shoulders and the migrainy ache in the head.
Though Bazball went too far with its “No Consequences” culture (surely bleeding out from off-field to on-field decisions), New Zealand’s six and seven have shown its value. And England kept bowling down the legside.
Phillips survived a gladiatorial battle with Jofra, the bowler very much in the role of the lions, but the batsman will get an icepack or two on the bruises and come back tomorrow – he’ll be very happy with that.
England bowled a frankly pitiful 77 overs in six hours plus 30 minutes. New Zealand scored 247 runs and were handed a pitiful 44 runs in extras.