By the time England play their next international match, the Lord’s Test against Pakistan in May, they will have a new chief selector in place. He or she might have expected that an initial task just before the announcement of the squad would be to make a phone call that began along the lines of “I’m sorry to have to tell you, James …” – but after James Vince’s second-highest score for England, a tantalising 76, that may not be necessary after all.
Vince’s winter tour now has some substantial bookends. In Brisbane during November he hit 83 in the first innings of the Ashes series before he was run out. In a more relaxed atmosphere here in Christchurch four-and-a-half months later the cover drive was still working well and looking good. The trouble is there have not been many runs in between, even though Vince has always looked polished until his cover drive sends the ball to the slip cordon, which was how he was dismissed on Sunday. His tally this winter is 326 runs from 11 innings, which is neither calamitous nor compelling. He may just hang on even though he still promises more than he produces.
It was an important innings in the context of the match. With a disappointing lead of 29 and the pitch behaving more benignly, England required plenty of runs without too much delay and Vince’s brisk knock, which occupied 128 balls, was helpful but not decisive.
Not that he will be the only topic of conversation for the new selector. Most of England’s batsmen will be under scrutiny and that includes Alastair Cook. He was dismissed by Trent Boult for the fourth time out of four innings in this series, caught behind when not sure whether to leave or play. He has mustered 23 runs in this mini-series, confirming his vulnerability against left‑handed opening bowlers. His credit rating is better than most but he may spend some time, after inspecting the new-born lambs, pondering his career plans.
Mark Stoneman has also had a frustrating winter, hinting at permanence yet his 60 on Sunday was his highest Test score. It was not a fluent innings and he was dropped twice, on 48 and 57, both difficult chances in the slip cordon. His tally for the winter is very similar to Vince’s – 389 runs from 13 innings.
Stoneman is a gritty battler but there remain a few technical shortcomings. His footwork is not flawless. He sometimes remains stuck on leg stump and that was certainly the case when he swung at a wide ball from Southee and was caught behind on Sunday. He also struggled against the short delivery as the tour of Australia progressed; by the same token he must have learned a lot. Like Vince, his future is not certain.
England’s batting coach on this tour, Graham Thorpe, said he was pleased with the positive attitude of both of them but he has been around long enough to toss in a few caveats. “We are not at a place where we know our best team or batting order. It is not like when Straussy was captain and the lineup was set in stone. We remain a work in progress.”
Stoneman and Vince added 123 together. Then, in the last hour as the temperature plummeted and the light declined, Joe Root, who has not come to the crease with England having as many as 147 runs on the board since the Test against India at Rajkot in November 2016, carefully consolidated alongside Dawid Malan so that the tourists led by 231 runs at the close. It was hard work for the bowlers as the pitch became ever more docile.
New Zealand would have been happier with their efforts in the morning. They had 5.1 overs of the old ball and Tim Southee made sure that he would use them to good effect. A pull shot off Ben Stokes, who was allowed three more overs, sailed away for six and there were meaty boundaries off Mark Wood and Jack Leach as England shuffled their bowlers.
So New Zealand had progressed to 219 for six when the new ball was taken and Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson were reintroduced. Now batting was trickier and soon BJ Watling received a peach of a ball from Anderson. Throughout most of its flight path it looked like a leg-stump half-volley but just as Watling prepared to play a clip through midwicket the ball swung, missed the bat and struck the stumps on the line of middle and off.
Ish Sodhi never settled and soon became Broad’s fifth victim when he gave Jonny Bairstow his fifth catch.
Southee kept swinging to good effect and had just celebrated his fourth Test half-century when he was clean bowled by Anderson. Now there was a merry, old‑fashioned, last-wicket partnership except that Neil Wagner was hit on the helmet, which nowadays prompts a cursory check that all is well, a sprint on to the pitch by one of the medical staff and an inquiry about who is the prime minister.
Wagner and Trent Boult added 39 in seven overs with a variety of swishes, often against Wood’s short balls. For some reason he declined to attempt a yorker at either of them. In the end a Broad bouncer resulted in a catch on the fine-leg boundary but England’s lead had been significantly reduced.
For the first time since 1912 and the third time in Test history all the wickets in the first two innings of the match had been shared by the two opening bowlers on each side – according to TMS’s Andrew Samson.
