“Test Match cricket’s boring? Kiwi’s win in a thriller!”
…….and the banshee ran wild”
In the late Summer of 2023, a once roguishly handsome young man who has rather withered and morphed with age into a strange looking alien from another dimension, donned a Radiohead t-shirt once more and headed to his spiritual home of Ironbridge. This is his video, and a tale of sporting suspense and cricketing defeat, triumph and disaster, and a banshee running wild after five days of Test Match cricket from the sunshine of down under and an original article I penned entitled “From Wellington with Love”. This article became the very final chapter of my first book on cricket and here I am reading it as my spiritual home awakens to the beginnings of its annual “World Heritage Day” last Summer. The world’s oldest iron bridge provides THE perfect backdrop to my rambling musings with distant ants crossing the “Grand Old Lady” of Ironbridge and the still of a late Summer’s morning providing THE most delicious of reflections.
Care to spend 6 minutes beside a rambling old fool on the banks of the River Severn?
"Test Match cricket's boring? Kiwis win in a thriller!" - Youtube
"Test Match cricket's boring? Kiwis win in a thriller!" - Original Article
After 4 days and fully 2 sessions of rain interrupted Test Match cricket, it came down to this: England needing just two runs for victory, New Zealand one final precious wicket. Seconds later, Neil Wagner is screaming like a wild banshee before being mobbed by his jubilant, disbelieving team-mates whilst James Anderson can only stand disconsolately, looking down at the ground and the bat that had tickled the faintest of possible edges through to the full length sprawling dive of wicket-keeper Tom Blundell. New Zealand had won, against all possible odds in a following on, come from behind victory for the ages, and for the second time in the entire history of this great and grandest game of all by one, single, solitary run, and stealing from the great Ian Smith from the ICC cricket World Cup of 2019, “by the barest of margins”.
The barest of margins indeed. My goodness.
There are many people for whom Test Match cricket is summarily and instantly dismissed as “boring”. Five days, often resulting in a draw (but not in this English revolution), with rain delays, declarations and fielding positions such as “backward square leg” or “deep third man” looked upon with contempt and derision. Teams are in, then out, out then back in, made to “follow-on” amid “googlies”, “zooters” and “leg breaks” and batsmen that are not out until they are out, but are back in again before they get out.
Again.
Perhaps you fancy a brand new “cherry” or “nut” or “rock” to bowl, seam, swing, reverse swing, spin, leg spin, side spin or indeed no spin at all or even better, that “mystery ball” on a “green top”, a “road” or a “feather-bed”, or perhaps a “Bunsen Burner” in a Delhi dustbowl or the grey overhead conditions of Headingley in Yorkshire, watching the masters of their bowling art “swing the ball around corners” with unplayable “Jaffa’s” that trap a batsman “dead” and “plumb” in front a “castle” of “poles”, but the less said about the “silly mid-off” fielding position the better, ok? I may be confusing you enough by now.
But boring?
Please.
This morning in New Zealand or, if you prefer, a 9.30pm start here in England that magically transformed into the most incredible piece of live sporting action for many a long day that became 3am, and that final ball of the contest, a wide, somewhat tired leg side delivery from the fiery Neil Wagner that James Anderson “tickled”, “feathered”, “dabbed” or plainly and simply edged a cricketing “strangle” into the gloves of jubilant wicket-keeper Tom Blundell, New Zealand had won a Test Match, a boring game of cricket, by one run.
A cricketing session short of five days, the ex World Test Champions defeated the revolutionary wannabe champions by a single, solitary run, and in a Test Match that yet again had that beautifully simplistic template that has thrillingly beguiled me now for over four decades. The ebb and flow of a game of Test Match cricket cannot be denied and must not be ignored. The team who lost today, those cricketing revolutionaries and mavericks from England under the command and guidance of Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes were arguably ahead throughout the match, and on three of the past four days of the contest. They were so far ahead in fact that Stokes enforced the “follow-on” another of the sport’s beautiful quirks whereby if the second team falls in excess of 200 runs short of the first team’s innings, well, you politely ask them to bat again. From the beginning.
In and Out.
Out and back in again.
Following on, the eventual winners today New Zealand, a team on the slow decline after their recent world champion status and the unluckiest of losers in the World Cup Final of 2019, were over 200 runs behind before they commenced a 2nd innings that would result in a healthy, but achievable now lead of over 200 runs that would eventually, after a crazy run-out, a near century from England ex captain Joe Root, a valuable innings from current captain Ben Stokes hopping on one leg and a cameo of brilliance from their wicket-keeper batsman Ben Foakes who “farmed the strike” to within 7 runs of their combined 1st and 2nd innings total. England, dominantly on top for the majority of the match now needed just 7 further runs for victory, New Zealand just one further wicket.
1,383 total runs would be scored in this Test Match.
The teams are currently divided by just 7 of them and England would fall, in that beautiful vernacular that colours this magnificent sport so well, “one short”.
A single from Jack Leach, a hack in truth that fortuitously fell between chasing fielders, was greeted with a huge roar of approval from England’s travelling support of the “Barmy Army” around the Basin Reserve in Wellington, and a Wellington 11,000 miles away from a very different Wellington where I pen these very words. I entitled this Test Match “From Wellington with Love” but we don’t have time for such cloying sentimentality now.
There’s a Test Match to be won.
With 6 now needed to win, James Anderson crashed a quite unexpected boundary 4 that gave rise to the 40 year old legend of the game to bump gloves with batting partner Leach. The grand old man of the grand old game was pumped all right, and Jack Leach, hero of Headingley 2019, was going to be a 1 not out batting hero once more. Neil Wagner, his bowling dispatched to all parts both here in this match and the previous one just days ago in the beautifully picturesque looking Mount Maunganui, continued his cricketing “barrage of bouncers” as he tried to snag that final game winning wicket. Anderson wanted a “wide” called on one delivery as it skirted the bounds of legality, a wide, a single run, would have tied the scores.
But back came Wagner once more, and then, the banshee ran wild.
"Ashes to Ashes" - Available via Amazon
Thanks for reading. Blessings of peace to you all.