Joe Root spoke before this game of the ‘fun’ he intended to have on his return to the captaincy, but his expression as umpire Nitin Menon upheld Matt Henry’s lbw shout at a crucial stage of this second Test suggested something darker.
Root’s dismissal for 46 in the final session of the second day, quickly followed by the removal of Harry Brook – also leg-before to Henry – left England with serious work to do if they are to deny New Zealand the win that will set up a decider next week in Nottingham.
And with Ben Stokes named in Durham’s squad for their championship match against Northamptonshire at Chester-le-Street, the scene is set for the ECB’s worst nightmare: domestic success for one England captain even as he remains on the naughty step, and possible defeat for another in a Test match English cricket cannot afford to lose. Fun? That’s one way of putting it.
At stumps, England had staggered to 222 for six in reply to New Zealand’s above-par 391, with Jordan Cox making an assured unbeaten 22 on debut but a long tail already exposed. It looks a long way back from here.
The tourists’ first-day score of 291 for seven had flattered England, as Root over-complicated what ought to have been the simple business of setting conventional fields and aiming for the top of off stump. On the second morning, he lost control completely during a chastening passage of play that revived old accusations about his lack of tactical acumen.
Not for the first time under Brendon McCullum, England’s strategy against the lower order amounted to little more than spreading the field and dropping short. Not for the first time, it failed.
Joe Root’s England are up against it in the second Test against New Zealand at the Oval
Matt Henry dismissed Root and Harry Brook in quick succession to turn the tide in the away side’s favour
It didn’t help their cause that Ben Duckett somehow dropped Kyle Jamieson at deep midwicket off Sonny Baker in the day’s third over. But what was worse was the adherence to a plan that has routinely left England struggling to finish off opponents.
By mid-morning drinks, New Zealand’s eighth-wicket pair of Phillips and Jamieson had helped themselves to 74 runs from 12 overs of unmitigated dross, with Jofra Archer – presumably still recovering from his fierce eight-over spell on the first evening – a peripheral figure at mid-on.
Jacob Bethell bowled Jamieson for 41, but by now New Zealand had moved well past the 350 they had identified as a decent total, and they were soon celebrating Phillips’s first Test hundred, an intelligent counter-attack full of clean off-side blows.
Finally summoned at 12.30pm, Archer had Henry slogging to mid-off, before Phillips pulled Matthew Fisher to Gay at deep midwicket. But a total of 391, including a profligate 53 extras, was roughly 100 more than England should have allowed New Zealand after reducing them to 107 for four and 188 for five, and Root’s one-dimensional tactics did little to encourage thoughts that he is the right man to lead the side if the Stokes saga remains unresolved.
England needed to bat sensibly on a pitch still full of runs, but a fortnight of self-inflicted damage continued when Emilio Gay called Duckett through for a non-existent single into the off side, and turned round in horror to see his partner beaten to the striker’s end by Nathan Smith’s direct hit.
The dismissal was a waste in more ways than one, since Duckett had moved fluently to 36 in 25 balls, and looked odds on for a first Test half-century since last summer. He could barely drag himself off.
As clouds gathered, Bethell nibbled fatally at Smith to make it 68 for two, and it needed another mature innings from Gay, and all Root’s experience, to prevent further damage before tea.
New Zealand had plainly learned from England’s harebrained bowling tactics. Jamieson was expensive, but his three seam-bowling colleagues settled into the kind of time-honoured line and length that England appear to find so distasteful.
Dropped captain Ben Stokes is preparing to play for Durham in the County Championship
Gay brought up a hard-earned fifty, his second in his three Test innings, but then turned his back on a short delivery from Will O’Rourke: New Zealand’s review revealed the ball had brushed the glove, ending a third-wicket stand of 74.
And when Henry – with wicketkeeper Tom Blundell up to the stumps – pinned Root, two runs short of 14,000 in Tests, and Brook, for 24, in successive overs, England had slipped to 177 for five.
James Rew played some nice strokes in his first Test innings, but O’Rourke mercilessly targeted an obvious weakness against the short ball. After Rachin Ravindra dropped one top-edged hook at long leg, Rew provided Daryl Mitchell, running back from slip, with an easier chance, and was sent on his way for 24 by some invective from a pumped-up O’Rourke.
If Stokes does return as captain for the third Test at Trent Bridge, he may find a team in need of a few forceful words of his own.
