England v New Zealand Day 4

Gosh. Have we suddenly moved from a position of supine weakness to the possibility of winning the first Test after Ryan Sidebottom's hat-trick? Well, no. Actually, by ensuring that New Zealand ended the fourth day with eight wickets down instead of five or six, Sidebottom may have made it more likely that England will lose.

I hope not, of course, and wish to take nothing away from Sidebottom's feat. Taking wickets is always better than not taking them. But given the weakness of New Zealand's final two batsmen, chances are they will not delay the end of the innings long tomorrow, which means that England will have more time to chase a target to win - but also New Zealand will have longer than they may have planned to take ten wickets. If they were only five or six down, chances are that they would have batted on for an hour tomorrow, which would have increased the chance of a draw. Incidentally, the highest winning score at Hamilton by a side batting last is 212.

Anyway, first things first. Let us assume that England are batting pretty early tomorrow, chasing 280, say, to win in 85 overs. Or a bit more than 3 an over. How will they approach it? Will that old enemy - fear - raise its head again and constrict their batting? If there was a time for Kevin Pietersen to come out to bat at No 4 and play aggressively, this would be it. Chance your arm, boys, and don't just settle for a draw.

Praise is due to Sidebottom, though, who has become England's most valuable bowler in the past year. The man who deserves much of the credit for Sidebottom's revival after that fruitless debut Test seven years ago was his county captain at Notts, Stephen Fleming, who was the first victim in his hat-trick. Many congratulations to Tim Ambrose, too. A fifty in your first innings is not a bad way to state that you are the wicketkeeper-batsmen England craves. Mind you, Matt Prior started well with the bat, too. Glovework is still the most important skill - and so far Ambrose looks a competent keeper.

Comments

[Oscar the Grouch]

Peter - obviously you haven't caught up with the new UnZed smash TV hit 'UnZed's Buggest Yek Wringler'....

[johnmc]

Peter - I'm not sure exactly what chutzpah is but if it means 'clue' England certainly haven't got a...

[Rusty]

England obviously lacking in chutzpah. Again. Not only are they not going to win, being 35-4 at lunch, but they are going to make sure they don't lose by batting negatively. A dismal draw looks inevitable, unless Vettori can come over all aggressive-like, and flatten the remaining batsmen.

[Peter McGuinness]

This will be interesting.

If England have got any chutzpah at all, they should certainly push for a win. Surely, they are good enough to beat New Zealand, whose national interest in the true form is somewhat less than darts but slightly more than yak wrangling.