Which is the real version of the Black Caps? The team who earned an unprecedented sweep away to India or the one being dismantled at home by England?
The
answer sits somewhere in the middle, but based on the second day of the second test, it’s closer to the latter than Tom Latham and his side would like to think.
New Zealand began the morning by being rolled for 125 and ended the afternoon leaking a few more, leaving England on 378-5 and leading by 533 at the Basin Reserve.
Unless they blow away the previous highest successful run chase in test history – the West Indies’ 418-7 against Australia in 2003 – the Black Caps will soon head to Hamilton with the series already lost.
The mission then will be avoiding a rare 3-0 sweep in their own conditions, with England in 1963 and Australia in 2000 the only sides to inflict that punishment.
Such a result would detract nothing from the 3-0 scoreline achieved in India. But it would further emphasise the degree to which it was a previously unthinkable aberration.
Setting aside that series – a bit like assessing Sir Edmund Hillary’s mountain-climbing record while omitting Everest – this team seem stuck in a deep rut.
Defeat in Wellington will mean that in the last 12 months, excluding India, New Zealand have lost seven and won three tests – one against Bangladesh and two over a severely understrength South Africa.
This will be a fourth straight setback at home and likely a third by a comprehensive margin. Unless, of course, they score more than 500 runs, having averaged 242 in their three previous innings this series.
On a big day for English seamer Gus Atkinson, who wrapped up the opposition’s first turn with a hat-trick, it was a time of small mercies for the hosts.
At least Tom Blundell made 16 before having his stumps disrupted, improving his average across the previous 21 months. At least Tim Southee removed Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell in the nineties, taking his tally to 389 wickets ahead of what steadily appears a timely retirement.
At least they denied Harry Brook a third straight hundred, the batter’s dismissal for 55 admittedly continuing a run of raising his bat each of the six times he has faced a ball in New Zealand.
And at least Ben Stokes delayed the seemingly inevitable by declining the chance to declare late in the day, still stung perhaps by his side’s last trip to Wellington.
Aside from those consolations, there was nothing to shout about for a sellout crowd – except for those whose cheers were backed by the Barmy Army trumpet.
Those travelling fans had barely finished the morning rendition of Jerusalem before their compatriots began tearing through the remainder of the Black Caps’ batting order.
Starting day two on 86-5, the requirement was a revival similar to that launched at the same venue in February 2023, when the hosts fell to 103-7 and followed on before completing an epic fightback. Instead, Blundell lasted less than four overs.
Nightwatchman Will O’Rourke followed for a duck, having faced more balls (26) and occupied the crease for more minutes (38) than seven of his teammates, before Atkinson made it a quick finish. The seamer became the first player to collect a test hat-trick at the Basin Reserve, bowling out Nathan Smith, nicking out Matt Henry and trapping Southee in front.
The last five wickets were lost for 39 runs, but much more fault lay with the performance of the specialist batters the evening before.
Trailing by 155, needing to apply pressure, create chances and pray for assistance – either from the pitch or the divine – New Zealand’s seamers allowed England a more comfortable time in the middle than either team had enjoyed this series.
While Henry again added his favourite foe in Zak Crawley, that early wicket owed more to a poor shot, the bowler laughing after Devon Conway took the catch.
Duckett and Bethell then piled on 187 from 220 balls before Brook and Joe Root joined their teammates with fifties. Stokes eventually walked out to bat rather than call in his mates, deciding three days to complete victory might be sufficient. He might be right.
The Alternative Commentary Collective is covering every home Black Caps test this summer. Listen to live commentary here.
Kris Shannon has been a sports journalist since 2011 and covers a variety of codes for the Herald. Reporting on Grant Elliott’s six at Eden Park in 2015 was a career highlight.
