England will be hoping to secure the three match England New Zealand
cricket test series when they host New Zealand in the final test match in a
few days time. The English have been in dominant form all throughout the series
and with the Kiwis looking jaded and short of ideas, this upcoming match should
be a foregone conclusion. However, cricket is played on the field not on paper
and the New Zealand cricket team will be hoping to give the England outfit a
tough time at.
Click for Live Score Card of England vs New Zealand
A fine performance in the final two days handed over a evenly poised test match
to the English last time around. On a pitch that was becoming increasingly unpredictable
by the moment, Andrew Strauss announced his comeback with a breathtaking century
that lit up the whole platform and saw England move up 1-0 in the series. Despite
the absence of Andrew Flintoff for the series, England have hung on manfully
and the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell are still due a big score.
After falling a massive hundred off runs short in the first innings, the brilliance
of Monty Panesar saw the pendulum swing England's way last time around. In spinner
friendly conditions in Manchester, the euphoria of Manchester United winning
the European title was matched by a masterful bowling performance by the Sikh
off spinner who rattled the New Zealand batting line up. Monty managed to turn
the ball square throughout the second innings and was instrumental in restricting
the New Zealand to a low total with career best figures of 6-37. England won
the reverse last time around in New Zealand and with the team in peak form and
confidence, expect much of the same this coming week in Nottingham.
New Zealand on the other hand have no one but themselves to blame after letting
a huge first innings slip away with some rather unsavoury batting performance
in the second innings. The lack of experience christened itself big time as
a combination of fine bowling performance by upcoming spinner Monty Panesar
coupled with some rather savage batting saw the New Zealand team throw away
their chance of jabbing back at England. New Zealand are now in the threat of
losing two back to back test matches against old rivals England and will be
hoping that the likes of Ross Taylor and Jamie How stand up and perform in the
Nottingham. In a match that ended in a rather anti-climatic fashion, the likes
of Daniel Vettori and Ross Taylor stood up to the task with some outstanding
performances with the bat and ball. Ross was particularly magnificent forming
a potent mixture of guile and aggression and he will be relishing his role as
a mentor for the New Zealand batting line up following the retirement of Stephen
Fleming and Nathan Astle. New Zealand have lost their last four test series
against major test playing nations and they will be hoping for some much needed
inspiration when they square up in a weeks time in Nottingham to play England
this coming Thursday June 5th 2008.
Don't miss a single moment of this exciting cricket test series with us here,
your one stop destination for all cricket news, views and updates. Keep in tune
with the England cricket scores with our RSS and Flash based scorecards which
give you live England cricket updates in a jiffy. Listen the opinions of cricketing
gurus on the current state of England cricket with our unofficial live cricket
commentary portal which streams in England cricket audio updates in a fraction
of bandwidth in comparison to live online cricket streaming services. Light
up your summer with a dose of live international cricket served to you at breakneck
speed and efficiency here, the premium cricket portal.
|
