England were left cursing missed opportunities and a punter’s pint as New Zealand hit back with a thunderous opening day at Trent Bridge.
Once again it was their first Test heroes, centurion Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell, who did most of the damage with an unbroken 149-run partnership. But four dropped and missed catches of varying difficulty ended up costing England on a pitch that is probably more batsman friendly than they thought at the start of the day.
And the fact that one of Mitchell’s two sixes landed flush in the plastic glass of a spectator, thus removing the swing that England had been enjoying, told them it wasn’t their day. It meant for the second Test running the captain who won the toss was left wondering whether or not they had done the right thing.
At Lord’s Kane Williamson chose to bat under heavy skies and had his decision backfire immediately with his team 39-6 at lunch. There was no Williamson here due to a positive Covid test on the eve of the game, but his stand in Tom Latham would have been grateful that Ben Stokes made the call to bowl first as the Kiwi batsmen made hay on day one to finish 318-4 in bright Nottingham sunshine.
It is easy to see why Stokes chose to bowl first with a decent covering of live grass on the pitch, cloud cover, a confident bowling attack, and a fragile Kiwi top order who had just lost their best batsman.
But instead of a flurry of wickets inside the first session there was a flurry of boundaries as New Zealand raced past 100 for the loss of just two wickets, and the second of those was a bit of a gift to say the least.
This is the risk that England are determined to take though and while they got their rewards in London, they weren’t so fortunate in the East Midlands as their fielders repeatedly collected the ball from the ropes.
And yet the day still could have been different had England taken full advantage of the session between lunch and tea when they got the ball moving. After the supreme performance in the field at Lord’s when every catch was taken and seemingly every throw hit the stumps, they returned to the mean at Trent Bridge and it cost them.
Even South African great AB de Villiers felt moved to tweet: “Not nearly enough emphasis is put on the importance of catching, especially in Test Cricket. Often the difference between 250 all out and 400+.” And he’s right.
Zak Crawley had taken a confident catch at second slip to remove Will Young for 47, but he was a little too zealous in diving across and in front of Joe Root and dropping Henry Nicholls on 17. Root was then the culprit, first for a straightforward catch at slip when Mitchell had made just three - the pain of that drop continues - and secondly for a catch off a Blundell cut when he was on 47.
It is then amazing how confidence ebbs away from a team because with the second new ball Stuart Broad teased an edge from Blundell and both Crawley and Jonny Bairstow in the slips simply watched as it flew between them.
The Kiwi pair shut up shop thereafter and made sure they got into the pavilion without any more trouble and can go again on day two, while England will hope to take whatever chance comes their way.
