England vs New Zealand: Henry leads NZ rout as Stokes return looms

0:01Michael Atherton:Yeah, gone! Gone! He gets his fairytale ending! An epic way to go to a Test Match 100. The London Spirit of First Time win is the most remarkable thing you'll probably ever see in cricket. 604 and final Test Wicket for Stuart Ford.

0:19Simon Doull:It's ended when the T20 World Cup.

0:23Michael Atherton:England's captain Ben Stokes, while he is there, England have hope.

0:30Simon Doull:Hello and welcome. It's a little bit before what would be the end of the scheduled lunch break on day five here. New Zealand took no time whatsoever in wrapping up the remaining England wickets this morning. Matt Henry was absolutely sensational. The margin of victory in the end, 253 runs. The Kiwis certainly like playing test matches here at the Oval, albeit they don't do it very often. Michael Atherton and Simon Dole alongside me. Let's start with the Kiwis. It was a really gutsy, professional, disciplined performance from an all-round bat and ball.

1:05Michael Atherton:All those things, yeah. They had to do it the hard way because they lost the toss and the pitch was probably at its most helpful in those early stages. That key hundred from Glenn Phillips when he survived a barrage from Joffre Archer on that first evening. Tough, tenacious, gritty, brave innings. And that 3-9-1 then looked a pretty good score, especially when England started to, their tactics went all wrong on that second morning. So 391, good score, and then really disciplined line bowling, especially from Matt Henry, outstanding figures, the best for a New Zealand bowler against England.

1:39Simon Doull:Dion Nash held that record, didn't he, from the infamous 99 series that Dooley and I and Nat all played in. Sets it up beautifully, doesn't it, for Trent Bridge. And also, we talked about the quality of New Zealand cricket and the cricketers that they produce from such a small population. Playing on a very fair surface, they outclassed England, albeit England were very inexperienced in comparison.

2:06Michael Atherton:Yeah, and I think that told in the end, the slightly more inexperienced nature of England's bowling attack was overshadowed by, and I wouldn't say it was massively experienced, you know, 35 tests, 19 tests, I think 11 or 12, maybe 13 for O 'Rourke and Nathan Smith in his seventh. But it's just the amount of time that Matt Henry has been around that New Zealand set up, which has been since 2015. Kyle Jamison has not played because of injury, so he's been in and out for quite some time. And Smith looks very promising to me as a genuine sort of lower order batter who can fill a great fourth seamer's role.

2:43Michael Atherton:so there's more than enough to like about it. And Willow Rourke just looks awful to face, as we've talked about. But it's more of a typical New Zealand-type performance that you want to see. Ath mentioned the nature of Glenn Phillips. That last evening, that battle with Joffre Archer, that's New Zealand cricket summed up. Gritty, tough, for the most part. That's how they want to see their New Zealand cricketers play. They prospered when England lost the plot on day two. and from that moment on you felt New Zealand were in charge of the test match.

3:17Simon Doull:Matt Henry's figures, what, 11 for 109. And let's be honest, that's not the sort of pitch that you dream about bowling on as a quick bowler, is it? I mean, Laws was. This is something where you're going to have to graft and work for your rewards. How good a performance was that?

3:34Michael Atherton:Superb. Absolutely superb. We threw his numbers up prior to play today in his last 19 test matches. He's now, well, he's close to 100. It's now in his last 19, 20 test matches at an average of 19 or 20. And it's just that line, that length, the nagging area that he bowls, good areas. It's just one of those things that epitomises Matt Henry. And he's not a genuine swing bowler. He is just a hit the seam bowler and it'll do something. And he very rarely gives it away. I talked yesterday about best on best. Who do you want to get out? when you're playing England in this situation after a tumultuous week, you want Brook and you want Root.

4:17Michael Atherton:You've got them both in both innings. And that is what your senior bowler, and that's what you want from your senior bowler. And given a helping hand by Tom Blundell, one of those performances that when people look back at the record books or the test match from this week and they look at the scoreboard, they're not going to pick out Tom Blundell because he got a few runs, but none of that work up to the stumps that contributed to Matt Henry's performance will be highlighted. But I really enjoyed watching him this week. You know, the skill, it's a hard thing. I mean, I'm no wicketkeeper, I've never done it, but it looks very hard to me.

4:54Michael Atherton:Those fingers wouldn't have come. To stand up to guys of 80 miles an hour on a pitch that, you know, by fourth day has got a little bit of up and down and I thought his skill level was extraordinary. The catch-off Archer in the first innings with a huge deflection. You know, Dinesh Kartik did an excellent masterclass for us on the technique of, you know, having to ride the ball and kind of turn your body and go with it. So I thought he was outstanding. And I actually asked Matt Henry, because I gave him the Player of the Match award, and I said, had you looked at, you know, what Australia did?

5:25Michael Atherton:And Alex Carey said, actually, well, we did it. They'd done it in a test match in Wellington when England were over there previously, because they know Harry Brook likes to dance around the crease. So that is a tactic teams are going to certainly use against Brook more and more, I think. There's a long history of Australians taking things from New Zealand and claiming them as their own. If you go back to Farlap and have Lova, Crowded House. There's a long history of that. They're an Aussie band. Exactly. Long history.

5:56Simon Doull:Brilliant. OK, so I think we're all agreed that New Zealand are very much worth their 1-1 scoreline in the series. and throwing it forward, I mentioned 1999 again, because we might have a situation that's slightly in reverse of that. The 1999 series, it was a four-match series on that occasion, and England and New Zealand were locked at one apiece before the decider here at the Oval. Obviously, one-all now. The last Test match would be at Trent Bridge, but rather than losing half the team for the last Test match, England might very well be regaining half the team for this one.

6:31Michael Atherton:They might play the same team that won at Lourdes, I mean, Stokes and Atkinson have been withdrawn from their county game. We assume that means that they're going to play, that Stokes will come back as captain. And there's no reason then why they wouldn't go back, maybe, depending on the conditions and all that, go back to the team that won at Lord's. That would be extraordinary. You go from, in a three-test match series, you go from five changes between Test 1 and 2, and then five more going back to your original team would be extraordinary, really. But that's a sign of the chaos that England are in.

7:03Michael Atherton:and they are in a bit of chaos, I think. And I don't think even if those changes are made and you go back to the team that won at Lourdes, there are still lots of questions to be answered. You know, how's the Stokes-McCullum dynamic? How will Stokes be coming back into the dressing room? Because he must feel a sense of responsibility for some of the chaos as well. So it's not straightforward for England at all.

7:28Simon Doull:Yeah, he certainly would have that feeling And I'm presuming he got pulled out of the Durham game. We heard that this morning, that he'd made 90, what was it, 96, 95 for Durham, picked up wickets, had a bowl, had a bat, hasn't had a bat in a long time, particularly not in Test match cricket, but not a great deal around that either. So that would have done him some good. Gus Atkinson also pulled out of Surrey's game against LaMorgan at Cardiff. And so, you know, the signs are that those guys are going to be coming back without knowing that 100 percent for sure. I guess the other thing is, and it was put to Brenda McCullum, who spoke to Ian Ward and Nasser Hussain at the end of the game, they wanted to know as to why neither Brenda McCullum or Rob Key at any point in the last 10 days, it's nearly two weeks now, has said, we'll wait for the news or the findings from the regulator.

8:25Simon Doull:And if, in all being well in those circumstances coming back from them, Ben Stokes is still our captain. None of them were willing to say that. And therefore, there was a sort of a sense from everybody who's been covering the story and who's interested that they haven't backed Ben Stokes, particularly in this interim period. You didn't have to say, yes, he's definitely coming back. But you could caveat that with the idea that as long as everything is fine with the regulator, he's our captain, he's our man, he's coming back. So do you think that there could be a bit of niggle there from Ben's point of view coming back into the dressing room?

8:58Michael Atherton:Well, the moment you don't say it and don't say he is our captain, providing everything is cleared and the regulator says he's OK to play again, Ben Stokes is our England test captain. Neither McCullum nor Key said that. So therefore you are allowing speculation. And that's what's happened. Rumours are flying. The journos, the press, everyone's talking, oh, there must be a rift. So they've created that themselves by not blank out saying, he is our captain, providing everything is going forward. So a bit of a disconnect between what Brendan was saying and the reality of the situation. He's raising questions or concerns about Stokes' well-being at the time that Stokes is preparing to play and at the time that those at Durham, CEO and coach, are saying we haven't noticed anything wrong with Ben.

9:52Michael Atherton:And players we've talked to as well, who he's spoken to, have said, he's absolutely fine. No issues. So that's what's created the confusion around it. And that's what they'll have to get over. He will be, he'll walk back into that dressing room and he will apologise, I'm sure, because that's what Ben Stokes does. It's what he's like. You know, he will feel terrible about this result. He'll feel some sense of responsibility about this result going the way it has done. but I think he's still got the respect of those players in that dressing room from a cricketing and a captaincy point of view so why that wasn't said by either of those two I'm not sure but I think if they thought he was the man moving forward then it should have been said

10:39Simon Doull:They should have said so OK, move forward then to Trent Bridge we've already raised the idea, the spectre of the fact that England might very well go back to the first 11 that they played at Lourdes. Atmosphere is going to be incredible. I mean, you know, brilliant Test match win for New Zealand. We go to a decider, three-match series, one apiece. Tight little ground at Trent Bridge. Always a very good atmosphere there, but you feel as though it might be quite febrile with the return of Ben Stokes this week. So, you know, from our point of view, it's set up beautifully and it should be a fun five days.

11:16Michael Atherton:It's going to be a great story for a couple of days. There'll be a couple of banging press conferences from McCollum, first of all, on Tuesday. And then Stokes, who we haven't heard from throughout all this thing. We've not heard from Ben Stokes yet, but he's going to have to speak on Wednesday, assuming that he comes back as captain. So there'll be a bit of a feeding frenzy around that. And then it's all on, isn't it? One all, great ground, good test series so far, good cricket. And yeah, the decider.

11:40Simon Doull:The decider. Two questions, actually. Cricketing questions away from rumour and story. There are two things that sort of stick in my mind. New Zealand, will their quicks, say for example, it's as hot as we think it's going to be this week. New Zealand lose a toss, end up in the field with the four quicks that they've gone with, barely bowled any spin at all. Are they going to be able to back it up or will there be a change, do you think?

12:03Michael Atherton:I think today was massive for that point of view because neither O 'Rourke nor Smith bowled on the last day. So they get an extra day. They get the afternoon to travel to Nottingham instead of going two days before a test match. They can go up on a Sunday afternoon, have Monday completely off, have a bit of a run around Tuesday and be ready to go Wednesday. So I think it's quite good from their point of view. I think it's worked out a little bit better. Matt Henry's fitness levels are phenomenal. and Kyle Jamison, he might be the only concern, having come back from injury, he's bowled more overs in this test than Willow Rourke, he might be the only concern from a New Zealand bowling point of view.

12:51Michael Atherton:But they will now have, you know, an extra seven, eight hours, which makes a massive difference. And if they use that time to get on the team bus and make their way up this evening, therefore it just gives them another night sleep in the new environment and they can kind of work into it a little bit better than they might have been able to had they had to travel tomorrow morning slash afternoon.

13:14Simon Doull:Yeah, and from England's point of view, I'm just thinking about the 11 that's likely to play. Say it is the same team at Lords. One slight concern, Jacob Bethel. Has barely done any batting at all. He's done a lot of chatting to Virat, we're told, but hasn't had a couple of good deliveries, but just looks a little bit all at sea in the number three position. and, you know, knives won't be out for him, but it's certainly the nature of the job. Number three, huge position. He hasn't played any first-class cricket, barely anybody.

13:46Michael Atherton:Others have not unscored runs, so it can be done. Yes. But when you take the choice to go to the IPL for two months and miss the whole of the start of the first-class season, that choice is on you. That's how it works at the moment. It's that the players make the choice. it's not how it should work by the way as centrally contracted players but that's how it does work so when Jacob Bethel makes the choice to miss first class cricket he then that's his choice to come into a test match without any form or first class cricket under his belt that is on him and therefore if he doesn't get runs the spotlight will fall as it always does on any top order batsman who's short of runs so he'll know that and he want to get runs.

14:34Michael Atherton:And he's still a young kid trying to establish himself, really. We saw all the quality that he possesses at Sydney, but we'd like to see it a bit more.

14:41Simon Doull:Certainly would. OK, well, we'll leave it there. It promises to be, well, I reckon the next couple of days will be pretty exciting as England announce their squad. New Zealand, no doubt, will celebrate responsibly between now and Thursday. And, you know, who knows? We could see the sort of return that Ian Botham made to the England Test match tied all the way back in 1986 where he got a wicket with his very first ball and I think it was Jeremy Coney, wasn't it? He nicked off at slip, it might well have been. Anyway, I'm expecting a sort of prodigal son, a hero's return for Ben Stokes up at Trembridge because there's no doubt in my mind over the last few days where the public's allegiances lie.

15:23Simon Doull:If they had to make a choice between the management who are in place at the moment and Ben Stokes coming back into the side, I think they'd go with Ben. So it could be a lively one. We're all very excited about it. Thanks for joining us and we will speak to you from Trembridge.