England vs New Zealand: Another chaotic day as 17 wickets fall on day two at Lord's

0:01Yeah, gone! Gone! He gets his fairytale ending! An epic way to go to a Test Match 100. The London Spirit of First Time Winners! The most remarkable thing you'll probably ever see in cricket! 604 and final Test Wicket for Stuart Ball. It's India will win the T20 World Cup. England's captain Ben Stokes, while he is there, England have hope. Welcome back to the Daily Review. Day two of the Lord's Test. It's red for Ruth Day. Players in red, commentators in red. New Zealand still in the red. 225 runs and they've two wickets down. All eyes will be on tomorrow, but for today, let's talk day two. A day, Simon Dool and Mark Butcher that two players got on the honours board.

0:48Let's start with Ollie Robinson. He's back. Is he ever? Talk about making an impact. Listen, the reasons around Ollie Robinson's sort of omission from the England team have never had anything to do with the skill that he has with the new ball. I mean, England were desperately in need of somebody with his sort of accuracy and incisiveness with the new ball in the ashes. He wasn't selected. His, I don't know, his attitude to the work sometimes were perhaps a little bit less than was desired by the management. and there was a breakdown of trust between the two and that's the only reason why he wasn't there.

1:27But, you know, given a new ball and conditions like the ones we've had in this Test match here, you would expect him to take wickets. And of course, being Oli Robinson, he made an impact in the most extraordinary way with three wickets in his first over and looked totally unplayable at times. So a few runs with a bat as well later on, and we'll get to that later, but he's had a terrific test. And it is pretty much, the ball is entirely in his court in terms of his, you know, don't leave the team up the lurch by walking off after bowling two overs and your condition is not right. Do everything that the management asks of you.

2:00And he's got a long, long career in England's test team because he is a terrific, terrific bowler. Conditions aside, not express pace by any stretch, Dooley. What makes him so good? 21 tests. He's been in and out of the side seven times now because of a variety of different things. But the impact he makes, his average is ridiculous for, you know, 21 tests since my career. Yeah, and I think we talk a lot about bowling over top of that front leg. He's a tall man. He's 6 '4", 6 '5". So he gets over top of that front foot nicely. He causes a little bit of problem with bounce. And when he's operating at his optimum, which is only that 83, 84 mile an hour mark, it does enough because of that steepling bounce, because of his use of the seam.

2:46He can swing the ball away. He's got the ability to nip the ball back into the right-handers, which has caused issues. So he exposes inside and outside edge of the bat. And as Butch said, when conditions are in his favour, he's very, very difficult, which they've been in favour of all the bowlers throughout this test match. His test will come if New Zealand are able to bat deep into this innings and if New Zealand are able to bat better at somewhere like the Oval or in the third test match. then coming back for second and third spells. That's what they want to find out more about Ollie Robinson.

3:22But at the moment, it couldn't have asked and wished for a better place to start, a better surface to start on, and a better first six deliveries. And he just continued that on well. So, yep, second innings, he should be absolutely fine. He only bowled 10 overs in the first inning. So second innings, he should be still raring to go. Yeah, well, the Kiwi tail didn't wag and all that for 113. So just trailing still by 27. So England had that little lead. And over to the opening pair, new opening pair, three left-handers at the top of the order. And you sort of sensed, the big question was, how will England play this?

4:01But you mentioned a couple of times that third innings, what do they want? How do they play? And it was reserved in a way. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I think the easiest thing to have done would have been, look, it's gone all over the place. We've bowled them out. They've, you know, we've bowled them out. They've bowled us out cheaply. Let's go out there and have a swing and see what happens. Did they do that? No. They formulated a plan. Harry Brook spoke about it. He said, you know, why was he the most successful player in the first innings across both teams? It was because he was incredibly watchful with balls hitting the stumps.

4:34It was low balls and it was deliveries nipping back into the stumps that were causing all the problems. so he was very watchful with that and then anytime he got the chance either with balls missing leg stump or balls probably more importantly outside off stump he had a real go at them really threw his hands at them and Duckett and Emilio Gay both did exactly that and frustrated the life out of New Zealand for that opening partnership of 50 odd and it was it was impressive because Emilio Gay had to show a lot of courage and a lot of patience as well as you know technique and all the rest of in his first test.

5:08And it was impressive because it was kind of the sort of thing that we've been crying out for England to do in situations where they're ahead in the game. You know, take on the responsibility of knowing you're up front and then make sure that you push that into a situation where the opposition, although not quite out of the game, are as far out of it as you can make them. And it was a really good performance from them both. Well, Willow Rourke has just been dismissed by Josh Tong, so that's going to be the end of the day's play. We'll keep chatting for a little bit, so the night washers certainly didn't work for New Zealand, so it's an early finish to the day's play.

5:40New Zealand still needing 218 runs, so it'll be a big day tomorrow with a little bit of rain around as well. Emilio Gay, first player since Andrew Strauss, 2004, to hit a half century in his very first Test match, and he had to come in tricky conditions, got through to lunch, they put 52 on for the first wicket, had that lunch, had to reset himself. There was a lot to like. And you could easily, you know, many players have started their test match careers on good wickets, on flat wickets. And you might get 50, 60, 70 on debut and feel pretty good. I think that will feel as good as anything for him because it was properly tough.

6:22It was really, really difficult against a bowling attack that we've seen. And, you know, without Henry at his best, but in Smith, O 'Rourke and Jamison, ball doing everything and all sorts of things. He did absolutely nothing wrong in the first innings, I didn't think. Two lovely boundaries and then just got a delivery that would have hit the edge or beaten nine out of ten top-order left-handed players, I think, including the man alongside. Oh, come to that. But his composure, I thought, today was exceptional. And he knows his scoring areas. I think he's got more scoring shots in him. You can see that from the way he plays and the way when he got to that 20-30 mark, He was just looking for a few more deliveries to score from.

7:05But his scoring areas were anything that they got slightly wide. He scored a lot of runs to point and down to third, but they were cultured and they were proper cricketing shots. And if they drifted too close to the pads, was it the one to score 50 or just after 50? It just worked beautifully down through the mid-wicket region. There was a huge amount to like about the way he played and just the composure and maturity he showed, I think, in compiling that innings. Yeah. So Matt Henry, off the field yesterday because of the back spasms, came out today. It took a while for him to be thrown the ball.

7:39Got in a little bit down on pace, which you can understand with that back injury, but then bowled a ball that, well, it was unplayable. Not to say it was an absolute peach. It just did not get up at all. It was the start of the rot. So poor old Jacob Bethel. Like, what do you do? I mean, he'd been worked over horribly by Willow Rourke, hadn't he? either side of the lunch break, really decided he was going to put a few deliveries up him and had him dropped as well. I think it was Devon Conway. Your physio again. My old physio, our old, the England physio, Dean Conway has had more mentions today than Kane Williams.

8:15And, you know, he put him down. And then Bethel, having sort of got through that spell in the end by hook or by crook, just received an unplayable delivery. I mean, Nasser delivered a rather impassioned speech, having a pop at the surfaces at Lourdes in general. You know, we come here for blast games and 100 matches and quite often it's very, very difficult for batters to score. World Test Championship pitch wasn't great here. They've tried everything they can to try and make this one better here today and it just hasn't worked. And that ball to Bethel was completely unplayable. And given that we'd had probably less than 100 overs in the TAS match up to that point, pretty unacceptable to have just ran straight along the ground from the back of a length and crashed into the stumps.

8:56So follow on from that, it was all about Nathan Smith. So he goes up on the honours board, 6 for 70. I thought he bowled superbly well in the first innings and he's backed it up today. Yeah, brilliant following on from his six-wicket haul against Ireland just a week ago. So back-to-back in test matches for Nathan Smith. He's kind of that player that New Zealand have been looking for from a seam bowling all-rounder point of view. He offers more than enough with the bat and just genuinely swings the ball away but nips it back in a little bit like Robinson, similar sort of pace in the early 80s, but really controlled.

9:33And I said prior to the Test match, I thought this bowling attack to me had a little bit more about it from a difference point of view. Although you're talking right armours, you've got O 'Rourke and Jamison with their height that will create a little bit different. Smith more skiddy and can swing it. and Henry, just a genuine seam bowler. So there's just a little bit more variation, even though you're still talking four right-handers. But Nathan Smith, I've been really impressed, actually. And in the last 18 months or so, he's forced his way into a regular place in the Test match line-up. There was some talk coming in that would they look at Mitchell Santner having had a Lazarus-type recovery from a supposed 9, 10-week injury, doing it in only four.

10:21but on this surface spin hasn't played a huge role so they're always going to go with Nathan Smith and he's rewarded them and he never shirks the tough duty either. With Matt Henry out, he had to do a bulk of the bowling and it's into the wind. It's from the end that neither of the other two seamers really enjoyed or wanted to bowl from so really pleased for him and it'll do him the world of good for the rest of the series as well I think. Tail wagged a little bit, Olly Robinson got run Smith some handy runs as well in the end England leading by 253 when they were finally bowled out New Zealand you feel as if it's probably just slightly out of reach but in saying that South Africa chased down what was that 282 in the World Test Championship final there's certainly an opportunity it was going to take them setting it up like England did between Gay and Duckett and unfortunately Latham will not want to be looking at that shot.

11:18It was a shocker, wasn't it, for the captain? And I'm pretty sure they would have talked about the tactics that England employed. You know, you see a bit of width, perhaps have a go at that, defend the straight ball. But unfortunately, what was it, second, third delivery or something? And it was on the up and it was wide. And it wasn't sort of a slashing square drive, which you might get a bit more bat on. It can fly anywhere over the slips, straight batted, feet nowhere near, head nowhere near, and a really sharp catch from Harry Brook at slip and Atkinson got England off to the perfect start.

11:49Yeah, we're running out a little bit of time, but just your commentary on Cain Williamson. Last time we're going to see him here at Lords, it would have been the fairy tale if he'd gotten New Zealand over the line with big runs. I think it was heavily reliant on Cain Williamson getting runs. He's one of those players that you know the determination, the skill, the ability that he's got. He's had limited success in England. 100 here at Lords, but averages 24 less than his career average in England. So he'll know the numbers. He'd have been disappointed. He'd have wanted to put on a show but got a good delivery.

12:21And, yeah, unfortunately, I think that's where New Zealand's hopes would have laid a lot. There's some tough work to do tomorrow. Mitchell's thwarted England at times. Blundell's thwarted England at times. Can they do it tomorrow? It's going to be very tough. We'd be certainly in favour of England at the moment. A bit of rain around tomorrow. They're going to have to navigate that cloud cover as well. But you just never know because the Kiwis, they've got a little bit of fight in them. That's Simon Dill. Yeah. Join us tomorrow for the Daily Review.