When my son was a toddler, the very first phrase he learned was “Oh dear!” and for several weeks everything was “Oh dear!” this and “Oh dear!” that!
I could have hired-him out to the BBC to commentate on New Zealand’s innings today.
It began with a “Double-Oh Dear!” as “Oh Dear! No. 1” – a rank wide full toss from Katie George – was slapped not to the boundary but straight into the hands of Amy Jones by Sophie Devine for “Oh Dear No. 2”. (George at least had the self-awareness to face-palm as Devine walked back to the pavilion!)
George’s next wicket was a demonstration of what she is capable of when she isn’t spraying it for wides – Amy Satterthwaite the victim of an unplayable delivery which took out her off stump.
But the “Oh Dears!” soon continued as Katey Martin – perhaps starting to look like she is a bit out of her era in the professional age – was trapped in front by Katherine Brunt; and it was downhill from there for New Zealand.
Laura Marsh got some big turn to dismiss Suzie Bates, but Bates will feel she should have played it better – she has been out a couple of times cutting this summer – and the “Oh Dear” was then written all over her face as she had to watch her team collapse in epic style, from 75-3 to 83-8, and thence to 118 all out – a sheen of respectability added to the scorecard as Kate Ebrahim and Holly Huddlestone put on 26 for the final wicket as the White Ferns at least staggered to 3-figures.
Earlier in the day Tammy Beaumont and Nat Sciver had shown that it was possible to bat on this pitch, if you did it slowly and patiently; and although it is true that the pitch appeared to deteriorate a bit, it didn’t do it to the tune of the 123 runs New Zealand lost by!
So… where now for New Zealand? Well… Leicester on Friday for starters, where they will try to dust themselves down for a consolation win after a disappointing “winter”.
And then as they fly home, they might do well to remember one thing:
Until a couple of years ago, England used to do these kind of collapses so regularly that we started referring to it as “Doing An England” – now they are World Champions!
However bad it looks now, come 2021 New Zealand could yet be World Champions too.
CRICKETher 
Good performance from England yet again and that 241 wasn’t such a bad score after all, probably only about 20 or so less than they should have got. It must be frustrating to be a New Zealand fan right now. Oh Dear, indeed. After threatening to really challenge England today, keeping them to a lower score than we might have expected and bowling them out, they unfortunately failed to turn up yet again with the bat, and the match was over as a contest barely halfway through their reply. That Katie George ball to get Satts out was an absolute ripper, but there were too many soft dismissals from NZ. Look closer and there were weaknesses in the NZ fielding too – they could have kept the runs down even more and put increased pressure on England at vital stages of their innings.
NZ might be performing pretty well against some other sides like South Africa, but as far as England are concerned they aren’t providing too much more of a challenge than Pakistan did in 2016. Whereas South Africa gave us quite a few scares. The NZ bowling and fielding is a level above, yes, England aren’t scoring those 350+ totals; but the Kiwi batting is really not looking good right now. In fact, NZ could learn something about batting more solidly through their innings from the likes of Pakistan. For all the hype surrounding Kerr with her batting ability and X-factor bowling, and I agree there is much promise there – she had a bad day at the office. Went for too many runs and never looked like scoring many.
I think the Kiwis should be aiming much higher, and I do expect something more from them on Friday. England might just let their foot off the gas a little as well now and make a few experimental changes. NZ should give it their all, and follow suit with the changes as the current Plan A is clearly not working. Looking forward to seeing the last international of the summer before the KSL starts next Sunday.
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England did enough, more than enough, even though they will probably feel they could have done more. Batting-wise, on that pitch, one wonders what the optimum total might have been. Take a slightly more cautious approach, and could they have made 260? More than that? Perhaps, perhaps not. They used 48 overs, so only 12 balls short, and were going over 5 an over for most of the innings. MR has often said that he would rather players made “the right mistakes” trying to play an expansive game, so if they erred at all yesterday I would say they erred in the right way, so to speak.
As for NZ, it’s hard to know where they go. After Bates and Devine, “the others” are averaging a collective 9.45 across the T20s and ODIs in England. Whether swapping the batting order can do much to rectify that must be open to doubt, to say the least.
They could open with, say, Kerr, alongside Bates and leave Devine to “slog” later. But if they give Kerr the instruction just to “stick around” does that then increase the pressure on Bates to score? I would guess they have to stay with what they have and hope that the top two can bat for 30-35 overs minimum. Sadly, at the moment, the pressure on them to do all the work seems to be weighing them down. Since the start of the T20s their contributions have been on a downward slope, whilst the rest of the team have not stepped up. In fact, it seems that some of their squad are shrinking in the glare, which is a huge worry.
Of course, they may surprise us all and win on Friday. Winning the toss and batting first might make things interesting for starters.
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