England v New Zealand Test Series 2026

[sussexpob]

Cricviz has this as the least consistent bounce of any English pitch since ball-trqcking data has been available - 20 years or so.

The data is not available yet in detail through PV, but I understand from the person who published this on X working for them, that he is talking about the rate of inconsistency, and not the extent of it. So its a slightly misleading statistic.

[sussexpob]

You'd think considering the match is now all but over, they'd give Bashir an over ?

[bigfluffylemon]

Nope. Game over. Big win in a sub-par match.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Five for Acko and he and Robinson tie with seven in the Test for the winning side. Smith has nine, but they lost.

Nominate Gay for POTM though...

[sussexpob]

Phillips surely deserves man of the match?

80 runs out once....

[Arthur Crabtree]

Plus 2/2 catches while his colleagues were making match losing drops...

Robbo made useful runs.

[Arthur Crabtree]

And Robinson gets the award.

After the football friendly, that England 2-0 NZ.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Nine ducks in the game is a revealing stat.

[Durhamfootman]

easy in the end

poor pitch, but providing lots of drama. I imagine that only those with 10 pints in them by lunchtime will have nodded off at any point in the game

[meninblue]

Watched only few overs of this test. Following the scorecard at various stages of thsi match I think NZ were never in the game especially conceding a smal but decent lead on this kind of bowler friendly wicket. After England's second innings of batting, an England win looked certain. 115 runs win on such a surface is more like 200 run win on other grounds. Big win imo for England. Home team doing what a home team should do, win big.

[meninblue]

Not even single over bowled by spinner.

Why woudl you need one when the overs inning-sise were 39.4, 29.5, 56 and 40.3 with 4 pacers to take that workload and wickets falling so quickly.

[bigfluffylemon]

Only the fourth match ever where 40 wickets fell with no overs bowled by spin, and the second time ever where pace bowlers took all 40 wickets and no spinner bowler a single over.

The other example being https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/sou ... -scorecard

[alfie]

Are you having a laugh , SP ? Do you seriously reckon this pitch is fit for a Test Match ? Think I have more respect for the views of the ex-Test players commenting on the game who recognise that balls practically running along the ground on the first couple of days are very much "an outlier"

If you look at the hardest ranked pitches to bat in data, they are almost all uniquely high bounce/high pace pitches. The data shows two quite clear things over history....

- Pace and high bounce are considered harder, and ranked appropriately
- Increased difficulty in these factors has a strong correlation to sanctions.
- Low bounce/low pace pitches have never been sanctioned irrespective of difficulty rating, and the same is true of pitches that spin a lot.

The 2019 North Sound West Indies v England game is ranked the hardest pitch ever measured, and it was not cited at all, not sanctioned, and no one complained. Because it was slow. Any high bounce/pace pitch over 8/10 difficult is sanctioned. Ahmedabad in 2021 v India is the only other slow/huge spin track ranked in the extreme difficulty, and that also was not sanctioned.

The data is beyond conclusive - to sanction a fast bowlers pitch that is not a danger to players would be unprecedented. It has basically never happened before irrespective of how hard batting actually is.

I probably should leave this alone because we are never going to agree...

But still : No one - certainly not me - has said this was the worst pitch they've ever seen. I have seen several worse - hell I have played on worse (though no one was bowling at 85 plus or paying 100plus pounds to watch ). What I and most others are saying is that this was absolutely not a fit surface for a Test Match ; and it is beyond my comprehension how you can attempt to argue otherwise . Do you want Test Matches to be barely lasting two days ? Think that will be good for the format as it wrestles with the growth of whiz bang franchise rubbish ?

You can claim modern bats are not as good at dealing with really difficult conditions , and I would generally agree with that. But to imply that that was the primary reason for this ridiculously shortened game seems to me a highly dubious claim. Some rather good players like Joe Root were made to look a bit silly on it : and these same players have managed to score plenty in the past , even on pitches that gave the bowlers a fair deal of assistance.

150 Tests at Lord's , but not just Lord's but all English grounds have never previously seen 24 wickets in a match fall either bowled or lbw. And only twice in all Test history (all countries) have 40 wickets fallen in less than the 996 deliveries that saw this one done and dusted. One was in 1907. The other in 1888. Not an over of spin bowled in the whole game. Surely all that hints that this was by any definition indeed "an outlier" (your own term) ?

High bounce is obviously more physically dangerous . No one would argue with that. But absurdly low bounce combined with total unpredictability are just as deadly to normal batting - as we have just seen. So this pitch still deserves to be rated unsatisfactory at best ; and if you can't see that then I despair of having a rational discussion on the matter.

PS : Despite the above , I am not going to use this as an excuse to (a) condemn criticism of Bethell for coming into this game with scant useful preparation - or for a poor shot prior to his actual dismissal. He still has work to do to prove his worth.
Or (b) Use it to downgrade justified acclaim for your pet bowler Robinson's fine game : he used the conditions superbly and I have nothing but praise for his performance. More power to him.

Other than that I was both entertained by the match while at the same time concerned to see a third of six England Tests decided in less than two days actual playing time. Makes it hard to judge team and individual performance so I hope the remaining Tests of this summer are played on somewhat more "normal" surfaces.

[sussexpob]

Alfie,

Much has been made of the "most inconsistent ever" comment from Cricviz, but its been followed by saying that the inconsistency difficult rating was 7.5/10, which is not an outlier stat. Just for comparison the 2022 delayed 5th test v India registered this figure also, and England chased 378/3, the highest score ever made by England to win a test. This was also registered in Leeds in the original 2021 series (when India scored 415), was registered at Lords during the 2023 Ashes test (England made 325 on that day, the lowest score in the game being 279 across all innings) and in the WTC final (South Africa chased 282/5 to win the game). Interesting how none of the above conditions left a team 20/5 nor led to outcries about a terrible pitch. Its suffice to say that batting batting terribly in tough conditions can give the impression of a total minefield, batting well on the exact same types of pitches (the 378/3 chase was identically rated) and no one bats an eyelid. So there is definitely optics at play. You say about outliers? When is the last time the best test bat by average in a series like this had essentially semi-retired, refuses contracts from his board, and instead picks and chooses when he turns up? When in the last time someone with no county hundred spent the warm up to a whole series not playing FC cricket? And how many England teams have been coached by a man who openly says technical skills training is something he is not interested in? Aren't these all outliers? Scores are plummeting across the board.

Examples of pitches of this nature (its the 3rd pitch that has been this bad since 2023 at Lords), even in recent years at the same venue, did not lead to such carnage. It was not impossible to score 300-400, because its been done on the same surfaces. The fact everyone was blown away shows relatively poor batting.

And out of all the England players to get a start.... Duckett, Smith, Robinson, Gay all scored 30 runs in an innings..... all played 5 CC games. Brook bucked this trend but was dropped twice on nothing. All those that played 0 to 2 games made nothing. Interesting that, isn't it? Almost like players with more games under their belt did better?

[sussexpob]

Bbc reporting Stokes and Atkinson have been found in breach of team discipline after an incident in a nightclub last night. No further details as yet....

They been playing. Fight the bouncer again?