Last-wicket pair put on 44 to frustrate England before new-ball strikes
Matt Henry removed Zak Crawley for the fifth time in the series • Getty Images
Lunch England 54 for 2 (Root 15*, Bethell 7*) trail New Zealand 347 (Santner 76, Latham 63, Potts 4-90, Atkinson 3-66) by 293 runs
Matt Henry removed both England openers as New Zealand enjoyed the better of the second morning in Hamilton. Henry continued his hold over Zak Crawley, dismissing him for the fifth time in as many innings, before bagging Ben Duckett in the same over as England stuttered in reply to 347.
New Zealand’s last-wicket pair of Mitchell Santner and Will O’Rourke had frustrated England through the first hour of the session, adding 32 runs to the score before Matt Potts ended a cat-and-mouse contest with the first ball after drinks.
In friendly batting conditions, England looked to get stuck in from the outset. Crawley managed to score his first runs of the series off Henry, flicking the first ball of the innings through fine leg and then edging low and wide of the cordon for four. He was more authoritative against the retiring Tim Southee, crunching him for four fours in his opening over from Seddon Park’s temporarily named Southee End.
But from the third ball Henry had bowled to him, Crawley could only manage a leading edge that was scooped up one-handed in the bowler’s follow-through. Crawley hung around for the third umpire to check but Rod Tucker confirmed the dismissal, bringing his record to five runs and five outs from 22 balls faced off Henry in the series.
Four balls later, Henry sent back Duckett, too, the ball seaming in to hit the back leg in front of middle stump. That left England 33 for 2 from five overs, before Joe Root settled quickly with three early boundaries to help bring up 50 in a lively mini-session that was the antithesis of what had gone before.
For the first half of the morning, with England spreading the field for Santner and focusing only on getting out O’Rourke, the last-wicket pair ticked along in untroubled fashion. Santner found the boundary three times but otherwise dealt largely in singles, often off the fourth ball of the over, while O’Rourke blocked steadfastly at the other end.
The No. 11 initially played out a maiden from Gus Atkinson and continued to show good defensive technique. His first run came via an inside edge to fine leg, and the same shot later brought him his first boundary in 19 international innings.
O’Rourke was given out caught behind in the seventh over of the day, only for Ahsan Raza to have to overturn his decision when technology proved the ball had flicked the trouser leg.
It seemed as if the holding pattern might continue indefinitely, with Santner creeping on to his second-highest Test score, after the hundred he made against England in 2019. But immediately following the break, Potts found some inwards movement on the right line to defeat Santner’s drive and peg back off stump, ending the stand at 44 and giving Potts his fourth wicket of the innings.
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick
