Before the start of this deciding third Test against New Zealand, Brendon McCullum was overheard saying he was set to learn a fair bit about his England team.
After a Lord’s surface that featured seamers fishing with dynamite and then the semi-skimmed XI chosen for the Oval, no one quite knew whether a flat pitch such as Trent Bridge’s would rekindle the aggressive batting of the previous four years, or if a winter of mixed messages from up top had fully stifled those instincts.
On the second day in West Bridgford’s open-air sauna, after Ben Stokes led an almighty fightback to keep New Zealand to 438 all out, Ben Duckett provided his answer. A rapid-fire 113, allied with an unbeaten 74 from Jacob Bethell, helped propel England to 223 for two from 45 overs. They are still trailing by 215 runs overnight but have set a platform from which to think big.
There was no question as to the moment of the day for the sun-baked locals. At 5pm, having tucked Mitchell Santner for a single, Duckett scampered off in celebration of his seventh Test century, from only 88 balls, and his first for nearly a year. The repeat punches of the air spoke of a player unburdened – and one perhaps feeling vindicated by their early-season switch.
Duckett had been due to play in the Indian Premier but after the sorry Ashes tour, Noosa et al, he opted to rediscover his red-ball form with Nottinghamshire. Peter Moores, the former England head coach who poured hours into this refurb, will have cracked a smile watching his opener back in the groove.
A couple of things went England’s way. Had Henry Nicholls held on to a regulation catch at third slip, Duckett would have joined his opening partner, Emilio Gay, back in the dressing room before England had passed double figures.
Had Blair Tickner not endured dizzy spells after a nasty blow from Jofra Archer while batting, a New Zealand attack already diminished by the absence of Matt Henry and Kyle Jamieson would not have been stretched to the point of Zak Foulkes, the last seamer in the box, coming on as a concussion sub.
Even so, after Gay was strangled down leg off Will O’Rourke for a duck and Duckett’s fortunate escape, there was no looking back. Duckett punched his next ball from Nathan Smith through extra-cover for four and then set about piercing the in-field with increasing regularity to reach his half-century from 40 balls.
It was the Duckett of old – the pre‑Mitchell Starc Duckett – as he turned Trent Bridge into his personal playground. Another Mitchell, Santner, toiled when the sweeps came out, while boundary riders threw themselves about in vain. Having looked so good at the Oval before being barbecued by Gay’s rash single, perhaps the life given him by Nicholls was simply the break Duckett needed.
Bethell took a look initially, in part due to the threat of O’Rourke, and in part due to his efforts to stop his front foot triggering outside the line of the ball. But soon he became more fluent, with the two southpaws sharing 179 runs in exactly 179 balls before Nathan Smith finally persuaded Duckett to chop on.
The loss of Duckett and the arrival of Joe Root slowed the scoring rate a touch. New Zealand’s reversion to the keeper-up ploy that caused England such bother at the Oval played a part. But with Bethell and Joe Root (21) holding firm until stumps – the former registering his first half-century in the first innings of a Test – New Zealand were suddenly the team with it all to do.
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Perhaps they can look at England’s fightback, which in the context of the heat and this road of a surface was Herculean. Having stared up at a scoreboard that read 317 for no loss on day one, the hosts claimed 10 wickets for 121 runs.
Stokes was central to it. His figures of four for 70, including a spell before lunch of eight overs, three for 13, was a captain leading from the front. It also meant he has become the second all-rounder after South Africa’s Jacques Kallis to pair 250 wickets with more that 7,000 Test runs. He is some cricketer.
Bowling with energy and mixing up his angles, Stokes was the man to end finally a 50-minute wait for the breakthrough. Daryl Mitchell did not think he had edged the ball behind on 11, only for a smart review to show there was a tickle.
Having finally prised out O’Rourke after more than an hour making a career-best 19, Stokes soon produced a vicious short ball to bounce out Santner. There was a suggestion it had in fact flown off the arm guard but the TV umpire, Adrian Holdstock, decided it had brushed the wristband of Santner’s glove.
New Zealand had gone nowhere, adding 57 runs for the loss of three wickets before lunch. Shoaib Bashir and Archer then mopped up, the former trapping Tom Blundell lbw for 30 from around the wicket, and then juggling a return catch off Nathan Smith, having earlier grassed one in the deep.
Even with Archer earning a rebuke from Stokes for not joining in with one of the celebrations, England look like a side putting in for their returning captain. Duckett, certainly, was back playing how his head coach, McCullum, would prefer.
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