The Hindu : Sport : New Zealand batsmen struggle on a rainy day

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 16, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport

New Zealand batsmen struggle on a rainy day

Ted Corbett

LONDON: Who would be a visiting batsman at Lord’s for a May-time Test? You have been brought up on hard pitches where run scoring is a formality, in sunshine that makes stroke play a pleasure and where rain was as rare as hen’s teeth.

Often as the New Zealanders found at the start of the first Test those ideals evaporate. The rain does not fall so much as drift down in a mist. Mizzel they call it in Manchester, short I suspect for miserable. The temperatures rival autumn’s meanest numbers and all you see as you head down St. Johns Wood are car headlights, Lowry figures in raincoats and a mass of red and gold MCC umbrellas.

Inside you may find a wicket where practice is possible but mostly you wait and wait and wait. On Thursday play began at 1.30 p.m. after only one false start and by 2.30 we knew this match would be short-run however much rain fell.

Redmond fails

Only 11 balls from the start Aaron Redmond was caught low in the slips by Alastair Cook off James Anderson who turned up with his radar properly set. Sometimes it is rigged by a gardener or a chef; today he had clearly had the experts in. Redmond, son of the remarkable father (Rodney) who might have had a great Test career if he had found an optician who fit his contact lenses correctly, played a shot that betrayed the fact that he thought nothing of family tradition or was overawed by his debut at the game’s most famous ground.

Another swift delivery close to off stump brought Anderson the wicket of Jamie How at 18. For a while Ross Taylor attempted a shot a ball and hit 19 off 20 deliveries before he skied a leg-side shot towards third man where a running backwards catch by Paul Collingwood gave Stuart Broad the wicket. He had already bowled several startling leg cutters. Welcome to the joys of a British green un, you Kiwis. After only 70 minutes for 57 runs New Zealand batsmen found Collingwood curling the ball round their bats from the pavilion end; he was England’s fourth bowler in 17 overs.

Vociferous shout

Ryan Sidebottom switched to the Nursery End and immediately had a shout for lbw against James Marshall that was turned down correctly by umpire Steve Bucknor but which caused Sidebottom to growl so loudly that those who could not hear him could see he was annoyed.

Broad, looking more than ever as if he was a kid from the Under-14s forced Marshall, who had batted almost two hours when he must have felt a fireside seat and a cup of hot chocolate was a better choice, to edge another swift and straight arrow to Andrew Strauss at first slip.

With four down for 76, Brendon McCullum produced a cover drive of authority off Broad but Daniel Flynn needed 16 deliveries to score his first runs from a flourish off his pads to mid wicket.

The pair had to make runs if New Zealand was to find a decent total. The smell seeping up from the pitch was not the sulphurous fog of Flynn’s home in Rotorua but the fear generated by the tail, the longest and feeblest in modern Test cricket. Flynn’s second four brought up 100 and reminded us that for once Sidebottom had bowled badly, wide and too short.

Anderson bowled Flynn round his legs at 104 and just before tea Michael Vaughan, a stickler for pointless tradition, brought on Monty Panesar.

He managed a maiden and two lbw appeals against McCullum. At tea New Zealand was 109 for five, wishing it was back home even in the depths of the southern winter.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport