Has a team ever played better than New Zealand and been whitewashed? Caught cold on the first day at Lord’s, they responded by bowling England out for 141. Reduced to 56-4 in their second innings, they recovered to 285. They then had England reeling at 69-4, with Jonny Bairstow gone, and were only thwarted by a mixture of majesty from Joe Root and mayhem from Ben Stokes.
At Trent Bridge, the New Zealanders – missing their captain, Kane Williamson, and their all-rounder, Colin de Grandhomme – were put in to bat and still made 550. At Headingley, they made 300 in both innings. In every game they could afford to get into a hole, knowing that Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell would dig them out of it. And yet they lost all three Tests, because it turned out that England had shed their fear. Or had had nothing to fear but fear itself.
And that’s us done. Thanks for your company and correspondence, which has been full of boggle-eyed astonishment. Thanks to Jim Wallace for handling all the action – and the rain - with his usual delighted aplomb.
We’ll be back on Friday for the long-delayed denouement to the Test series from last summer, which stands at 2-1 to India with one to play. Don’t tell the Indians, but England have changed a bit since then.
We’ve been dwelling on the batting feats in the series, but apparently there were some bowlers present too. The leading wicket-taker was Trent Boult with 16. He was roughly treated today, but he produced some wonderful stuff, taking out England’s top three in the first innings here, all bowled, for diddly-squat.
He just didn’t have enough support, as you can see from the list. Behind him are four England bowlers in a row – Matthew Potts with 14 wickets in his first series, Jack Leach with 13 in his good series at home, and the old firm, Stuart Broad with 13 and Jimmy Anderson with 11. One of them was quite expensive, and it wasn’t Anderson. Ben Stokes will probably be pleased with Broad for that, as one of the problems under Joe Root was that the two of them cared too much about economy.
The six most expensive bowlers in the series by RPO were all New Zealanders, led by their two spinners: poor old Ajaz Patel, who got only two overs, and even poorer old Michael Bracewell, who managed to rack up a century today (15.2-0-109-1). He was spirited in his first two Tests but did rather look like a wicketkeeper who had taken up off-spin late in life.
