New Zealand 🇳🇿 v England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 2nd test Wellington



The declaration is a nonsense discussion. They declared in the first innings of the first test after 50 odd overs and won. They declared in Pakistan test leaving them a very gettable total and they won. They backed themselves and had every right to and no one complained.
However in this game it was a great declaration in the context of the game for a number of reasons:
1. All of the experts tell you the basin reserve gets better for batting as the game goes on
2. We had a good first innings total and there was rain around
3. Getting them in then allowed us to bowl at them when conditions were at the best they would be bowling wise and get them out cheaply allowing us control of the game
4. The declaration allowed us to be in charge of the game and do what we want after first innings. We can take the ‘safe’ route and bat again or we can get them to follow on recognising that the pitch should stay good for the full 5 days when we chase. I was 50/50 on this but if any tactical criticism is to be given it should be here although personally I think it was a fair call.
5. The reason we lost was because we didn’t play good enough cricket in the second half of the match. This wasn’t an 80 hit 5 pitch and the batting this morning was really poor.
However it’s wrong to be too critical of the players or the tactics it’s their brave approach that has given you the last 12 months and 11 brilliant victories out of 12.
The declaration was absolutely the correct decision. We took 3 wickets on the evening after we declared and followed it up the next morning. What was either stupidity or arrogance was enforcing the follow on when the series was wrapped up if we batted again. Hopefully it’s a massive learning curve.
 
Take the rough with the smooth guys.

It’s been a minor miracle this turnaround by this England regime.

They have made test cricket entertaining brilliant to watch in a era where worldwide interest was falling.

I hope everyone realises they will just shrug their shoulders and say soo what we lost a game of cricket

And continue to do exactly the same going forward and I am over the moon for that.

McCullum has always said he would risk losing to win and clearly stuck to it in this match

Enforcing the follow on gave us more chance of winning the game but also more chance of losing it, but took the draw out of the equation and meant once again this England team was involved in a super entertaining match.

Another win for test cricket as a whole



That said if this was the last match in the Ashes with us in front they may have made different decisions in this match
 
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Well that wasn't what I was expecting when I checked the score after waking up this morning.

To be fair, one of the consequences of this new era of England cricket is that there will be spectacular defeats to go along with incredible wins. I'd rather see a result like this than playing out day 5 for a draw. If this makes more people interested in Test cricket then it can only be a good thing.
 
This. It isn't our job to entertain New Zealand spectators

I think McCullum genuinely feels mate either a responsibility or simply wants to, entertain all fans who attend test cricket matches with England involved.

That’s his philosophy, personally just my opinion I think that is exactly what test cricket needs at the moment in this era competing against white ball cricket.

And not only is he achieving that, he is winning a shit load of games as well.

So a loss in a brilliant game like that doesn’t bother me looking at the bigger picture and the mentality he has England test cricket at the moment.

They actually increasing our chances of winning games more than ever before because most of the time this England team are now only going to have two possible results rather than three, because draws very much out of the equation in test matches played by England at the moment
Well that wasn't what I was expecting when I checked the score after waking up this morning.

To be fair, one of the consequences of this new era of England cricket is that there will be spectacular defeats to go along with incredible wins. I'd rather see a result like this than playing out day 5 for a draw. If this makes more people interested in Test cricket then it can only be a good thing.

Exactly how I feel mate
 
Take the rough with the smooth guys.

It’s been a minor miracle this turnaround by this England regime.

They have made test cricket entertaining brilliant to watch in a era where worldwide interest was falling.

I hope everyone realises they will just shrug their shoulders and say soo what we lost a game of cricket

And continue to do exactly the same going forward and I am over the moon for that.

McCullum has always said he would risk losing to win and clearly stuck to it in this match

Enforcing the follow on gave us more chance of winning the game but also more chance of losing it, but took the draw out of the equation and meant once again this England team was involved in a super entertaining match.

Another win for test cricket as a whole



That said if this was the last match in the Ashes with us in front they may have made different decisions in this match
We could of had 2 full days to bowl New Zealand out if we didn’t enforce the follow on. If we batted at the same rate we have for the last 10 games.
We essentially lost the toss and batted at the worst time in the game then voluntarily elected to bat again at the next hardest point. Pure stupidity imo and hopefully isn’t repeated when it counts in the summer.
 
Should never have enforced the follow on.

Perhaps it’s good to lose THIS game in THIS way to hopefully teach a vital lesson to the skipper for the future.
I realise I’m in shaky ground arguing against this. We lost and almost certainly wouldn’t have lost had we not enforced the follow on. That said I can understand the decision. We were 200 plus ahead on first innings playing on a wicket that we were told would be better to bat on as the game went on. A one innings game of cricket with a 200 plus head start against a tea lacking a bit of confidence. It’s not surprising given the win at all costs mantra of the team that they chose to back themselves by enforcing the follow on but they lost in part by not having a Woody in innings 3 and batting very poorly this morning. I think if they had their time again they would still probably do the same thing.
We could of had 2 full days to bowl New Zealand out if we didn’t enforce the follow on. If we batted at the same rate we have for the last 10 games.
We essentially lost the toss and batted at the worst time in the game then voluntarily elected to bat again at the next hardest point. Pure stupidity imo and hopefully isn’t repeated when it counts in the summer.
According to every pundit batting last is as easy as any time in the game at this ground. I agree it didn’t turn out like that but it was still a good wicket.
 
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Test cricket is alive and kicking, well done New Zealand. I’d rather this happen now than vs the Aussies, but as already mentioned there would have been a different approach especially if it was 2-2 going into the final test.

I’m not massively clued up on the finer points of the review system, but if England had a review left, could they have used it to check the wide? There are very few instances where this situation pops up, but it would’ve been interesting to see the 3rd umpires take on the situation.
 
I realise I’m in shaky ground arguing against this. We lost and almost certainly wouldn’t have lost had we not enforced the follow on. That said I can understand the decision. We were 200 plus ahead on first innings playing on a wicket that we were told would be better to bat on as the game went on. A one innings game of cricket with a 200 plus head start against a tea lacking a bit of confidence. It’s not surprising given the win at all costs mantra of the team that they chose to back themselves by enforcing the follow on but they lost in part by not having a Woody in innings 3 and batting very poorly this morning. I think if they had their time again they would still probably do the same thing.

According to every pundit batting last is as easy as any time in the game at this ground. I agree it didn’t turn out like that but it was still a good wicket.
The wicket was great but mentally it’s always the toughest time to bat especially when the fielding team are pumped up.
 
In a bi-lateral that is little more than a friendly, I’m glad we went for it.

I’d like to think this experience will make them think twice if faced with the same decision in the summer.
 
I can understand what people are saying about being positive and aggressive but at the end of the day we’ve lost and I’m pissed off.

This. Great game but a defeat still hurts. If our footballers were in the world cup final I would rather win 1-0 in the most boring game ever than lose 4-3 in an entertaining match.

I'm not dissing bazball. It's great. What I am saying is you win some, you lose some but any team a person truly supports should feel hurt when they lose.
 
We could of had 2 full days to bowl New Zealand out if we didn’t enforce the follow on. If we batted at the same rate we have for the last 10 games.
We essentially lost the toss and batted at the worst time in the game then voluntarily elected to bat again at the next hardest point. Pure stupidity imo and hopefully isn’t repeated when it counts in the summer.

We gave ourselves the best chance to win the game no doubt about it imo by enforcing the follow on

And yes by enforcing the follow on we also have ourselves the best chance of losing the game.

This team is always looking at wins over draws which is great imo.
This. Great game but a defeat still hurts. If our footballers were in the world cup final I would rather win 1-0 in the most boring game ever than lose 4-3 in an entertaining match.

I'm not dissing bazball. It's great. What I am saying is you win some, you lose some but any team a person truly supports should feel hurt when they lose.

I did hurt mate.

But the point here I think is it wasn’t as important match as a World Cup final and if it was such as last game in the Ashes probably a different decision would have been made.

I look at it entirely different in the fact it’s like watching my football team playing brilliant entertaining football week in week out scoring loads of goals and winning loads of matches.

And if the odd time doing that we beat 5/4 in a great game of football I will more than accept that due to the entertainment I getting.
Knowing that when more important crucial matches come along they might be a little more careful say a cup final
 
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