The first day of the first Test match being played between England and New Zealand at the historic Lord’s ground, known as the Mecca of cricket, was very dramatic and full of excitement. In this match, the England team, which won the toss and came to bat first, was limited to just 140 runs in the first innings. It seemed that New Zealand would completely dominate this match, but in reply, the condition of the Kiwi team was also weakened by the fast bowlers of England. By the end of the day’s play, New Zealand had lost 6 important wickets on the score of just 66 runs. A total of 16 wickets have fallen on the very first day of the match, which has brought this Test to a very exciting turn.
England’s Test team was on the radar of cricket pundits and fans after their crushing and embarrassing 4-1 defeat at the hands of Australia in the winter season. Serious questions were also being raised on the strategy and job of head coach Brendon McCullum. However, the ECB management kept its faith in McCullum. After this, several rounds of long meetings took place between Managing Director Rob Key and Coach McCullum regarding the future and strategy of the team. Management had realized that their aggressive ‘baseball’ strategy was no longer working. Due to this, taking a tough decision for this big match against New Zealand, experienced batsmen Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope were shown the way out of the team and in their place young talents Emilio Gay and Jacob Bethel were included in the playing eleven.
Despite major changes in the team, the old poor form of England’s batsmen continued at Lord’s as well. In the swinging conditions, England’s top order fell apart like a pack of cards and six of the team’s batsmen could not even cross double figures. Emilio Gay, playing his debut match, made a great start by hitting a four, but he returned to the pavilion after scoring only 8 runs. After this, such a fall of wickets started that even strong batsmen like Jacob Bethel, Joe Root and Ben Duckett were dismissed cheaply. At one time the host team’s score was 4 wickets for 34 runs. In this hour of crisis, star batsman Harry Brook took charge at one end and played a struggling inning of 56 runs, but he did not get any support from the other end. New Zealand’s tall fast bowler Kyle Jamieson stunned the England batsmen with his deadly swing and took 5 wickets while bowling brilliantly. Apart from them, Nathan Smith took 3 wickets and William O’Rourke took 2 wickets, reducing England’s innings to 140 runs.
After seeing a small target of just 140 runs in the first innings, it was believed that the New Zealand team would easily take a big lead. But, his plans were thwarted by England’s fast bowler Ollie Robinson. In the very second over of the innings, Robinson gave such deep wounds to the Kiwi team from which they could not recover. Robinson completely demolished New Zealand’s top order by dismissing Devon Conway, veteran Kane Williamson and in-form batsman Rachin Ravindra cheaply in a single spell. After this, even opener Tom Latham could not survive. Darryl Mitchell (12 runs), who struggled for some time at the crease, was clean bowled by Robinson on a magical inswinger ball, which Mitchell made the mistake of leaving. Tom Blundell, who came at number six, also walked out after scoring only 4 runs. At the end of the day’s play, New Zealand’s score is 66/6 and they are still 79 runs behind England. Currently, Glenn Phillips and Nathan Smith are at the crease and the Kiwi team will now hope for a big miracle to stay in the match.
