England vs New Zealand Fourth Metro Bank ODI – The Final Over of the Day

Ball One: England, My England? 

Half an hour into the match, there are thousands of empty seats at Lord’s, a rare sight even in these straitened times. This fourth ODI follows on just two days after the third, a few miles south at The Oval and the second, five days earlier at the Ageas Bowl. To be fair, the ground did fill up as the lunches were consumed. 

That said, it’s a lot of money expected to be emptied out of the bank accounts of cricket fans based in the South East of England just as minds are turning to the heating bills looming on the horizon. It might make more sense to spread the matches around the country a little, and even more sense to lower the prices to reflect family budgets even in affluent London (there’s a deprived London too of course, and an everything-in-between London, so vast is its geographic and social sprawl).  

No doubt the modelling has been done and the roster of venues and prices proved to maximise returns, but sport has to be about more than extracting the most pounds from the bums on the most seats. The England cricket team may be the cash cow of the ECB, but they are also owned (albeit in a different way) by the nation at large.

Ball Two: A stat (well, almost a stat)

ODI cricket is over half a century old and, if its star is a little faded since the advent of Twenty20 (more accurately, since India’s embrace of the format after their defeat of Pakistan in the inaugural ‘T20 World Cup’ in 2007), it’s still a prestigious format with a storied past.

A straw poll to identify its greatest batsmen might come up with names like Tendulkar, Richards, De Villiers, Kohli, Ponting and Bevan, but probably not Buttler and definitely not Malan. Yet, on the very useful metric that sums batting average and strike rate, the Lord’s crowd spent the early part of the afternoon watching the two best in history (okay, Phil Salt and Shubman Gill might want a word – thanks to Rob Smyth for that irritatingly relevant detail) knock up a partnership of 56 to reestablish England’s somewhat hesitant innings. They’re both pretty good at what they do and it might do us well to recognise that. 

Ball Three: Willey not dicking around at number nine

England, somehow, got up to 311-9 off their 50 overs, an unlikely score when Joe Root and Harry Brook went aswishing and aswiping in the hope of locating the middle of the bat. 

But 50 overs cricket (unlike its 20 overs cousin) offers opportunities for late order batters to shine and England’s did so, not with a single eye-catching 50, but with consistent contributions. At number eight, Sam Curran made 20 off 13, David Willey hit 19 off 11 at nine and Brydon Carse 15 off 13 at ten. 

Not only are those useful runs, but they underline the potential of the lower order, something that allows the middle order to keep attacking knowing that it probably won’t be “Six out, all out”. It’s not always going to work – the day job for those guys is still bowling – but knowing 250-6 can become 311-9 in the last eight overs supports the freedom that England want to inculcate in all 11 batters in all formats of the game.  

New Zealand bowled better than they did at The Oval, Rachin Ravindra the pick with 4-60, but there was an excellent turn from Daryl Mitchell, injured himself, but required to bowl seven overs after Tim Southee had left the field with a thumb break and Ben Lister sustained a hamstring pull. The all-rounder conceded just the two boundaries and bagged two wickets in a brave contribution for his side.

Ball Four: Fast Carse gets England motoring 

David Willey bowled a continually threatening spell with the new ball, finding a little swing and a little seam with the infamous Lord’s slope pushing the ball further still off the straight and narrow. He had the wicket of Will Young for his troubles.

Brydon Carse was different gravy though, that ability to edge up to 90mph making such a difference yet again, Mitchell beaten by pace and a little in-duck to be bowled through the gate. The Durham man joins Mark Wood, Josh Tongue, Olly Stone, Jofra Archer, Richard Gleeson, Saqib Mahmood and Gus Atkinson in a phalanx of genuine, if fragile, quicks who will never play match after match on the international treadmill, but will be called upon to spice up an XI with a little bit of X factor.   

Ball Five: The kids are alright

What do the following have in common – Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, David Willey, Brydon Carse and Reece Topley? They’re all playing in this match of course, but they also have fathers who played first class cricket in England.

With cricket wrestling with its failure to reach into ethnic minority communities and boys and girls educated in state schools, it isn’t a particularly welcome sign, but it is remarkable that nearly half the XI are, as the modern idiom has it, nepo babies. There’s probably a bit in the genes, a bit in the opportunities that arise naturally when growing up and a bit in the family example/mentoring, but there must be more to it than that – though I’m not sure what.

Cricket has always had dynasties (the Mohammads, the Richardson/Chappells, the Cowdreys) and, for all that implies for the narrow base of the game, it provides a common thread to the past for those of us who remember watching David Bairstow, Kevin Curran, Peter Willey, James Carse and Don Topley. (Okay, I don’t recall Carse snr, but you get the point).  

Ball Six: Rachin ratchets up the tension – but not for long

Rachin Ravindra, in the glorious golden hour light that Lord’s does better than any cricket ground in the world, met a lost cause with defiance, going down swinging. With a hobbling Ben Lister at the other end and Tim Southee still looking at his X-ray and worrying, 142 runs for the ninth, and last, wicket was never on, but four sixes and 61 runs was just fluttering English hearts before Sam Curran cleaned him up with a yorker.

So a predictably disappointing series finished 3-1 to the hosts, no game even close, players with at least half an eye on the World Cup to come next month. Few matters were resolved. New Zealand still need Kane Williamson’s leadership, Dawid Malan is still a very good white ball batter and Harry Brook might come off and he might not. 

England will talk about taking momentum to Ahmedabad where they will open the World Cup with a match against, who else, New Zealand and the Kiwis will look to improve with a first choice XI (though Southee is now a major doubt) and, in particular, welcome back spinners, Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi, to offer control in the middle overs.   

Not many will remember this series next week, never mind next month, when the conditions and the context will be very different. Bring it on.