Auckland, day one: New Zealand 250-1

Before the start of the third Test there was a lot of discussion about how the pitch would play. New Zealand captain Brendan McCullum said that New Zealand would be playing to win the Test and the suggestion was that the pitch would have more life in it than what were relatively flat wickets in Dunedin and Wellington. That has not been the case at least on the first day, however. The wicket is very flat and apparently quite hard and does not look likely to break up. The expected seam movement was not present at all and the bowlers struggled to get movement through the air.

The flatness of the wicket certainly played a part in New Zealand racking up such a good score, but England did not bowl well at all for most of the day. They were far too short in the first session especially and did not really work out where to bowl until late in the day. They were especially poor immediately after tea; they came out late from the interval and seemed utterly uninterested. New Zealand had already put up a very good score, but with England needing to take wickets to try to drag the match back it was very annoying to see. England did not get a wicket in the session, although they did sharpen up after the drinks interval and managed to beat the bat a few times with the second new ball. It was not enough and certainly well too late, however.

England also had to contend with the problem of the absurdly short boundaries at Eden Park. It is a rugby ground and although it is not quite the standard rectangle of others, it is still noticeably shorter straight than square of the wicket and far too short to play Test cricket on. Peter Fulton had a top edge carry 53 metres and over the boundary. Friends of mine playing in the park have hit the ball farther*. The ground also has a capacity suited for rugby matches which means that it was less than a third full and had no atmosphere at all. Hopefully that will improve over the weekend, but even if it does this should be the last Test that Eden Park hosts. There should certainly be Test cricket in Aukland, but only if they build a cricket ground.

The state of the match means that Cook has come in for a lot of criticism for his decision to bowl first, but that criticism is premature at best and possibly unfounded. The pitch is good for batting, but there are other things to consider beside the first innings (and especially just the first day). The question is whether England will be in a better position having batted second than if they had batted first and with the pitch not showing any signs of deteriorating there is every chance that England will match whatever New Zealand score. (And remember that New Zealand have only scored 250 so far; there is still time for England to claw things back.) If the first innings scores are roughly parity than the decision to bowl first will certainly have been the right one because England will still have a chance to win with New Zealand batting third, they probably would not if New Zealand batted last. Of course, if the pitch does break up and New Zealand get a decent first innings lead then it will certainly have been the wrong decision for Cook. But either way we will not know until tomorrow at the earliest, so it is not possible to say right now that the decision was the right or wrong one.

*That’s not an exaggeration; we measured one of the sixes hit at seventy metres.

Wellington, day two: New Zealand 66-3

The second day of the Wellington Test was a much better one for New Zealand, especially with the ball. I said after day one that their bowlers had to find something more than what they had been showing and they stepped up to take eight English wickets for fewer than two hundred runs. It was certainly not the day for which England were hoping, but they did do enough to get the score up to 465 all out, which is certainly still formidable.

A lot of the credit to that score must go to Matt Prior and Steven Finn. After Ian Bell and Joe Root had got out to a pair of poor shots in the morning, Prior came in and started to steady the ship and after Kevin Pietersen and Stuart Broad departed in quick succession in the afternoon Finn kept him company. The pair came together with the score 374-7 and England still some way short of a good total. But Finn survived for 82 deliveries whilst Prior scored quickly from the other end and the pair put on 83 runs in just under twenty overs. Finn got a bit of criticism during his innings for the slow rate at which he scored, but it was entirely unjustified. Prior can and did score quite quickly and what he needed was a foil to prevent him from running out of partners. Finn provided an excellent one and deserves credit for the way he hung around.

Four hundred and sixty-five was still not as many as England would have liked, but impressive bowling in the evening session was enough to tilt the day into their favour. There was pace in the pitch and a bit of movement through the air, though the seamers did get a bit carried away with the bounce and started bowling a bit too short. This allowed New Zealand to put together a decent partnership for the second wicket, but Broad was the first one to find the right length and promptly took two wickets in as many deliveries.

The forecast for the last two days of the Test has improved slightly, but England will still want to hurry things along. New Zealand need another two hundred runs exactly to avoid the follow-on and England’s best chance to force a victory is to make sure that the Kiwis don’t get there. England will probably need to get amongst the wickets early tomorrow and they can get McCullum out before he can rescue his side again.

Wellington, day one: England 267-2

The first day of this Test was almost as good for England as the first day (of play, not the one where it rained) at Dunedin was bad. England will be grateful to Brendan McCullum for either not having the faith in his own lineup to bat first or for badly misreading the pitch, but either way he decided to bowl first upon winning the toss. After ninety overs on a pitch with little side-to-side movement and not as much pace as had been expected, that decision looks like the wrong one and very possibly a disastrously wrong one.

It has actually been an odd couple of days for McCullum. He said yesterday that he would bowl first if he won the toss and was apparently sincere in that statement. He also paid a compliment to Alastair Cook which was subsequently blown well out of proportion. He said that in his current form, Cook was probably the best batsman since Don Bradman. This was, inexplicably, taken as comparing Cook with Bradman despite very clearly saying that Cook is not as good as Bradman. Also overlooked was the important caveat of current form. And Cook’s form coming into the Test was four centuries in five Tests, certainly worthy of comparison to any batsman of the recent era. McCullum was certainly not helped by the press, but the fact so few bothered to actually see what he said blew what should have been an uncontroversial compliment out of proportion.

In the long run, however, it will be his decision to bowl first that causes him the most regret. His bowlers had not had a lot of time to recuperate from bowling for nearly two days at Dunedin and they were faced with another tough task here. Although Cook played a loose shot to depart fairly cheaply, neither Jonathan Trott or Nick Compton were in a mood to oblige. Both played very patiently, did not try to force the tempo and made sure that England got a good platform set. They actually did not get particularly bogged down either, despite their reputations. England’s run rate was well above three an over when Compton departed and by then the two had put on over two hundred together.

The Barmy Army started singing that England were halfway there when the 250 came up near the end of the day, but England should actually be aiming well over five hundred. From this platform and with the batsmen not only still in but still to come, 550 is certainly possible and perhaps even six hundred. The biggest issue is time. Run rate is not normally a major issue in the first innings of a Test match, but there is rain strongly forecast for the fourth and fifth days and it looks like a guarantee that the match will be shortened. England will have to put New Zealand in at some point tomorrow; if Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Joe Root and Matt Prior can score as quickly as they usually do then England will have time to put on three hundred before declaring very late in the day, but there is a chance that the attempt will result in a collapse and a sub-500 score. It is probably a chance England have to take, however.

It is certainly too early to suggest that New Zealand cannot win this Test, but they are in a position where they will probably have to play for a draw and hope for an opportunity to turn that into a win. But their bowlers have been disappointingly toothless after performing well recently and in the first innings of the series. They have had circumstances turn against them, but in the last 260 overs England have scored 688 runs for the loss of eight wickets. New Zealand are going to have to find something more than what they have been showing if they still want to pull off an upset.

Dunedin, day three: New Zealand 402-7

Day three was certainly a better day for England than day two was. The day was overcast and the seamers got a bit more help and especially once they got the second new ball in the afternoon. It wasn’t so good that England could get back into the match, however, and that is largely down to the efforts of Hamish Rutherford in the morning. He scored 171, four more than the entire English team, before departing to the first delivery of the second new ball and has almost single handedly given New Zealand their lead. Especially on debut, it was an enormously impressive innings. The next highest score for the Kiwis is only 55, though Brendan McCullum is 44 not out overnight.

That innings from McCullum is important also in it’s timing. He came in with New Zealand teetering a bit on 310-4 and it was then very quickly 326-6. New Zealand were certainly in danger of not getting the lead that they wanted and maybe not even a lead over two hundred. But McCullum scored his runs very quickly and often quite streakily whilst England kept the field up to attack and has scored better than a run-a-ball whilst getting the lead up to 235. It was particularly frustrating for England after they had done very well to get an opening, only to see it slam shut on them.

The drizzle and bad light meant that play was abandoned early again, which from this position will suit England. But the game has progressed so fast that even losing the better part of four sessions to the weather has not made the impact one would expect. New Zealand probably have time to bat a bit more in the morning, but McCullum should strongly consider declaring overnight. With the lead already 235, England will have to bat for most of the day just to reach parity and from there it will be more than a session into day five before they can make the match safe. New Zealand can make this task a bit harder for England by batting on, but I very much doubt it will be worth taking the additional time out of the match. The pitch is flat and expected to stay flat and New Zealand may want as much time as possible to bowl England out and possibly chase a target. The only reason for New Zealand to keep batting would be if they were worried about possibly losing the match, which is not even a vaguely realistic concern at this point.

Dunedin, day two: New Zealand 131-0

After the first day was washed out, England will probably be left hoping that the third fourth and fifth days will also see nothing but rain. This was probably the worst single day of cricket I have seen from England since 2009; even the debacles in the UAE had more positives than this performance.

I said in my preview that New Zealand could be a dangerous side and although they did show that today, England were simply far too careless. The fact that the spinner Bruce Martin ended up with four wickets on a pitch that wasn’t turning tells the story all too clearly. It’s hard to know exactly where to put the blame for England’s batting performance. They should have had another warmup match, but I don’t think the lack of one is a sufficient explanation. The fact that the entire first day was lost may have also taken a toll on concentration, but that is purely speculative and it certainly did not seem to hurt New Zealand. I worry that in fact England simply thought that there was nothing in the pitch or bowlers to concern them and paid dearly for that thought.

That said, some credit must also go to New Zealand. Neil Wagner in particular bowled very well and as a group they had clear plans in mind and showed very good discipline in bowling to those plans. Brendan McCullum, controversy about being handed the captaincy notwithstanding, did an excellent job. Never could he have hoped that England would so carelessly fall into the traps he set, but he and his bowlers did everything right to set them up. This is not a surprise in itself, but something England did not seem to have recognised.

What was rather more of a surprise was how well New Zealand batted. Certainly England were deflated after being bowled out for such a low total, but there was not a lot expected from Hamish Rutherford and Peter Fulton and they went about showing just how tame the pitch was. New Zealand have had a lot of problems with their opening combinations in the past, but Rutherford in particular looked very composed and competent on his debut. It’s far too early to say too much about him, but seeing someone finally succeed at the top of the order must give New Zealand supporters a lot of hope.

England bowled fairly well in the evening session, but it took them a bit to get going and with so few runs on the board the bowlers really had little chance. Stuart Broad was probably the pick of the bowlers; he was the most economical and also produced three clear chances. Unfortunately for England, two were dropped (one a sitter) and the other flew through a vacant third slip. It was very much that kind of day for England. Jimmy Anderson and Steven Finn also caused problems, but never managed to actually take a wicket or even produce a clear chance.

England were bowled out so fast that the loss of the entire first day now doesn’t make a lot of difference, though it does give England at least a sniff of a chance of a draw. They will probably have to approach the third day as a clean slate and although they are utterly up against it, they will have to get whatever they can out of this innings and then see where they are. They may take some heart that on this ground a year ago South Africa were bowled out for around 230 in the first innings before putting up 450-5 in the third innings. Obviously we saw last summer that England are not as good as South Africa, but it does suggest that the pitch won’t get much worse for batting as the match goes on. (New Zealand also got off to a very good start in their chase in that match, before the weather intervened.) The next three days will be a very interesting test of England’s resilience and whether New Zealand can make the most of a good situation, something with which they have often struggled. The match isn’t over, but England will really have to improve to get anything out of it. And maybe do a rain dance for good measure…

New Zealand v England preview

After England won both pyjama series 2-1 and lost the only red ball warmup match, we are finally approaching the meat of the tour: the three match Test series which begins in Dunedin on the sixth of March (fifth of March for those in the UK). England will be strong favourites after a first win in India for 28 years and after New Zealand were badly beaten in both Tests in South Africa. But this is not a New Zealand side to be underestimated and they will have Tim Southee and Ross Taylor returning, both of whom were absent in South Africa.

England did not play Jonny Bairstow in the warmup which should end any possibility that he may still compete with Joe Root for the number six spot. As I’ve written before, this is very generous to Root and harsh on Bairstow. England did give Graham Onions an opportunity to press his case for either Stuart Broad’s or Graeme Swann’s spot as the fourth bowler, but he took only one wicket for 213 runs in the match. The effect of this is that unless Broad suffers a recurrence of his heel injury ahead of the fourth Test, England’s XI for the first Test at least is all but set in stone. I suspect it will take an injury or a very poor performance for there to be any changes for the other two matches as well.

New Zealand added Neil Wagner to their squad for the first Test after he impressed against England in the warmup. With Southee, Trent Boult and Doug Bracewell all available for the first Test I don’t see any way for Wagner to be one of the three main seamers, but New Zealand’s only spin option in the squad is Bruce Martin. Martin is uncapped and has a first class average over 35 and I don’t think it would be a terrible idea for New Zealand to play Wagner instead in conditions that will likely help the seamers. It’s a tough call and unfortunately for New Zealand a tough call because neither player has done much to demand selection. I suspect it will be a decision made once they have had a look at the pitch, but right now I’d lean toward Wagner.

Even with the return of Taylor to the New Zealand side, I am not expecting much from the New Zealand batsmen. They were pretty thoroughly demolished in South Africa and even having returned home I don’t think they will find life against Anderson and company much easier. I’d be surprised if we saw any more double figure scores, but I think they will really struggle to put England under pressure. A lot will depend on New Zealand’s new opening pair of (presumably) Hamish Rutherford and Peter Fulton. New Zealand’s middle order is fragile and exposing them to the new ball is a recipe for disaster. Even if the top two can’t put a lot of runs on the board, they need to consistently form long partnerships to make sure that the Kiwi middle order do not face the teeth of the English bowling. In other words, they need to do the job of an opening pair.

New Zealand’s real strength, however, and where they might really cause England problems is their bowling. Southee was in the form of his life before missing the South Africa series with injury, but on his return to the Plunket Shield he promptly took 9-149 in a match. Boult and Bracewell are also both quite dangerous, though they have probably not shown it as often as New Zealand would like. Especially in their home conditions England can expect them to be a handful. England’s batsmen are quite good and won’t be in terribly unfamiliar conditions, but I still expect they will have a few low scores.

The player to watch may be Nick Compton; he has not yet solidified his place and this will be a very different ask than opening in India was. England still have the option of opening with Root and Compton probably needs to prove his worth here to make sure that Andy Flower doesn’t start thinking along those lines. Root himself need to show that his efforts in Nagpur were no fluke, however. As mature as he has looked it is easy to forget that he only has one Test to his name, but he does. He could yet find himself under pressure as well.

England are favourites, but if they did not already know that this would not be a walkover then their defeat in the warmup will have made that point quite clear. I expect New Zealand will have a few good performances in the series and will put England under pressure at times. The problem the Kiwis have is that when they do perform well they really struggle to back those performances up and consistently perform to the standard of which they are capable. England are a good enough side that if New Zealand continue to be so hit-or-miss they will struggle most of the series. I expect them to do enough to avoid the whitewash and with the weather also an issue I think the series will finish 2-0 to England, though 2-1 is a possibility. New Zealand might be able to get a draw or more, but only if they perform consistently well and England consistently or frequently fail to play to their standard.

Final round of Super Six matches

The final round of matches at the Women’s World Cup takes place tonight with Australia already in the final and one of the West Indies, England or New Zealand still with a chance at joining them. The West Indies have the easiest path at the start as they have six points to the four of England and New Zealand. All they need to do is win. England and New Zealand play each other and they both would have to win that match, hope the West Indies lose and then hope that their NRR is better than that of the Windies. England are in the slightly better position in that regard as the White Ferns’ defeat in the previous match was large enough to send their NRR below that of England.

The matches, like the ones in the last round of the group stages, are not simultaneous. This is once again a major oversight by the ICC and tournament organisers and this time gives England and New Zealand a slight advantage. They will know at some point during their match what, if anything, they can do to get into the final.

(Note about numbers: from here the words ‘around’ and ‘roughly’ will be both common and quite important. Extreme scenarios, such as a team defending a total of 100 or taking all of fifty overs to chase such a total would push the NRRs a bit above or below the maxima or minima I give, but they are so unlikely and the differences so small I have rounded.)

The analysis is very simple if the West Indies win the match against Australia: the same two teams will meet in the final. If the West Indies lose, however, both England and New Zealand will look very carefully at the margin. The NRR for both teams will probably drop even with a win, but a very large victory for Australia, something in the neighbourhood of 45-50 runs or with 10-12 overs to spare (or more, in both cases) then the NRR of the West Indies will drop so low it will make the England v New Zealand match effectively a semi-final.

England and New Zealand won’t know their task until late, but they will both know at the start of the match that a high-scoring affair will suit them well. The West Indies’ NRR will not be more than about 0.900 even with a very narrow defeat and whilst the NRR’s of both England and New Zealand could drop well below that (to about 0.785 and 0.725, respectively) the higher the total score in their match is, the less the NRR will drop. For England, a first innings score of greater than 225 (for either them or New Zealand) should be enough to ensure that if they win and the West Indies lose it will be England playing Australia in the final. There is no (realistic) corresponding number for New Zealand, but their required margin of victory also drops the higher scoring the match is. It will still be around 30-35 runs at best, however.

England are in far from an ideal spot, needing help from the Aussies, but it is far from gloom and doom for them. All three teams will probably fancy their chances from here. In summary:

West Indies
Any win will put them in the final and a loss by more than about 45-50 runs or 10-12 overs will send their NRR so low that they will be out of the tournament. Anything between and they are cheering for New Zealand to win by a relatively narrow margin, certainly fewer than forty runs.

England
Need the West Indies to lose first and then need to beat New Zealand. If they score (or concede) more than about 225 in the first innings then any margin of victory will do, but for lower scores they may have to win by as many as 25-30 runs or five to eight overs, depending on how close the first match is.

New Zealand
Need the West Indies to lose and need to beat England, possibly by as many as forty runs or ten overs. If Australia win by a large enough margin, however, any win will do.

Women’s World Cup group permutations

The final round of group matches in the Women’s World Cup are tonight and especially in Group A there is a lot for which to play. Unfortunately, the matches are not being played simultaneously. I criticised the tournament format in my preview and this is another poor decision by the organisers. India and Sri Lanka will now have the benefit of knowing the result of the England v West Indies match before their ends and that should not happen.

Those matches are in the more interesting Group A. Sri Lanka’s shock win over England means that all the teams in the group are level on two points and the only difference at the moment is Net Run Rate. (And in a quirk of statistics, since every team have both bowled and batted exactly 100 overs the NRRs are just the run differentials for each team divided by 100.) The West Indies’ crushing win over Sri Lanka wiped out their heavy defeat to India and then some, putting them top of the table with a NRR of +1.04. They’re followed by India and England on +0.73 and +0.26 respectively and Sri Lanka still sit at the foot of the table on -2.03.

The practical upshot of this is that whichever two teams win tonight are guaranteed to go through and whichever of the two losers has the best NRR will join them in the Super Sixes. All four teams could theoretically go out with a loss and the other result going against them, but the danger is greater for England in Sri Lanka than it is for India and the West Indies. In fact, the only realistic way for Sri Lanka to progress is to beat India. Any loss and their NRR is so bad that they will go out. It’s not, therefore, quite a must-win match for England. But if England don’t win then they will be relying on India in the late match because if India lose they would have to do so by a lot to end up with a worse NRR than England. For the same reason, a win for the West Indies will probably make India safe. The most likely way for them to go out is to lose to Sri Lanka and have the West Indies lose to England by a reasonable margin, though if they lose very heavily to Sri Lanka (by enough to send their NRR under that of England) they could go out even with a West Indies win. It’s quite unlikely though. The West Indies are the safest team at the moment; they would need to lose heavily to England and have India narrowly beaten by Sri Lanka to go out.

The other interesting aspect of the last round of matches in Group A is the points carried forward. If England beat the West Indies and Sri Lanka go out then England will actually carry forward maximum points despite their early defeat. The only other team capable of doing so is Sri Lanka and that is quite unlikely as it would require the West Indies to be eliminated. There is no way for India to advance, however, without having lost to one of the other teams to go through and it is very unlikely that the West Indies could do so either. They would have to beat England narrowly and have India lose very heavily to Sri Lanka to send India out.

In Group B things are much simpler. Australia and New Zealand are already through and the winner of the antipodean clash will carry maximum points forward to the Super Sixes. On form, one would actually expect the White Ferns to win; they have dominated their group matches so far whilst Australia have had minor scares against both of their opponents. But Australia have had the better of the recent head-to-head matches, so it should be a very interesting match.

The other match in the group is probably the more important though; Pakistan and South Africa will play each other for the last spot in the Super Sixes. I said in my preview that I though South Africa would pull off a minor upset and I still think that will be the case, but there is not a lot from which to choose between the sides.

My guess is that we will end up seeing England, the West Indies, India and South Africa join Australia and New Zealand in the next round, but there are some good looking matches and it should be very interesting.

Women’s World Cup preview

The Women’s World Cup gets underway soon in India and it’s so close that the organisers have even deigned to finalise the fixtures. The hosts play the West Indies on Thursday to start the tournament and the following day will see the defending champions England play Sri Lanka. The final is set for 17 February.

The format for this tournament is the same as the one four years ago, which is disappointing because it really is a poor one. The tournament starts with two groups of four and the top three from each carry their points forward to a Super Six stage. The top two teams from the Super Six stage then play each other in the final whilst the third and fourth teams and fifth and sixth teams, instead of just keeping their places from the group, also have a playoff. I never like having two group stages and I really don’t like having the top two teams in a group play each other for the final. I accept the need for a final, but that means there needs to be either an extended set of knockouts or more than one group. If there is only one table then position in that table should determine where a particular team finishes. (I have a similar gripe about the rugby Premiership.)

It is difficult to have only eight teams play a decent length tournament (though there are other teams who could have been invited and thus eased this problem), but there are ways to construct the tournament better without making it absurdly short and even ways to construct it without making it absurdly long. The obvious solution would be to have the teams from the two groups play knockouts against each other. The various permutations of this can lead to a tournament of almost any length and one that would actually make some sense.

But the format is what it is and the ones that were used for the 2012 T20 World Cups or any of the last few Men’s World Cups would suggest that this problem isn’t about to get better. Group A is England’s group and they share it with India, the West Indies and Sri Lanka. Group B then contains Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.

I would expect England and India to compete for the top spot in Group A. England have the better record and are probably the better team, but India might just be favourites as they are at home. England had to work hard to beat India in the ODI series in England last summer and it won’t be easy now. But they should both get through the group comfortably; the only question is who will carry forward the more points. I would expect the last spot in the Super Six to go to the West Indies. They actually have the most wins in ODIs in the last two years with 13 (though a worse W/L ratio than England and Australia) and should not have a problem finishing ahead of Sri Lanka. I would imagine they would finish third, but playing at home a year ago they did beat India 2-1 in a three match series, so might push for second.

Group B looks like the weaker of the two groups and should see Australia dominate. They are an excellent side and their biggest opposition is probably New Zealand – a side against whom they have had great success recently. Pakistan do have a winning record recently and are in relatively familiar conditions, but their preparation was badly disrupted and they have not done well against stronger opposition. South Africa are probably favourites to be knocked out of Group B (certainly they are according to the seeding), but they’ve competed a bit more recently and I think they can get through at Pakistan’s expense. I’d be surprised if either challenge even New Zealand though; the White Ferns are a better side than their record indicates. (Playing Australia and England all the time isn’t a recipe for a lot of wins.)

New Zealand, India, South Africa and the West Indies will all have uphill battles to challenge for a spot in the final though; realistically one of them will have to at the very least beat England or Australia and even then would have to win most of their other matches. New Zealand and India are probably the two most likely contenders, but I expect them to play each other for third place as England and Australia meet in another final. Australia have generally had the better of these encounters recently, including grabbing the T20 World Cup almost out from under England’s nose. The two teams will meet in the Super Six stage as well (which will be true of whichever two teams end up in the final) so there will be a chance to assess them head-to-head during the tournament and in these situations the winner is often the side who make the better adjustments. Right now though, I would say Australia are favourites against any opposition in the final. They are playing very well and have a lot of depth and my guess is a second close defeat in a final for England.

Three small things

1) England won an ODI in India. They have not done so (or at least not done so against India, they obviously did win a few matches at the last World Cup) since the 2006 tour and even that was in a dead rubber win and their only one in the seven match series. I didn’t see most of it, but it was a close affair with both sides scoring over 300. It was also the first match of the new ODI fielding restrictions, so it’s hard to say if the bowlers really underperformed or if scores are going to be higher on average now. We’ll probably never find out though; it surely can’t be long before the ICC simply make every over a powerplay over in the name of increased ‘excitement’. England will be obviously pleased to win and go 1-0 up in the series, but it is especially important with their recent record in India to get that first win out of the way and I think it will give them an excellent confidence boost ahead of the next match.

2) South Africa are 325-4 after the first day of the second Test against New Zealand. At least in the second half of the day, which is the part I saw, New Zealand did not look particularly penetrative and they let South Africa get well ahead from it being about honours even halfway through the day. They didn’t help themselves in the field; there was one dropped catch (against Hashim Amla no less), a low chance missed at slip and a would-be caught behind given not out and then not reviewed. I expected South Africa would put up a good first innings score, but the Kiwis have made it too easy for them at least on the first day. The pitch was turning by stumps, so the fact that neither side have a good spinner might become important.

3) An ICC committee have made another suggestion about DRS, this time that it be left up to the home board. I like this idea and this is the most reasonable implementation apart from simply making it mandatory. It would be simply a part of the conditions for each country, much like the different brand of ball used or the different hours of play. Of course, India have already expressed a dislike of the idea which means that it will be blocked just like all the previous times this has been tried.