NZ v England 1st day

Too busy watching the cricket to blog much about it. Worst possible start for New Zealand was to land in England with minimal time to prepare (especially for the contingent who had taken rupees over an earlier flight), then bat first in an interrupted day on a greentop at Lords in a muggy atmosphere. So no surprise that that is exactly what they got.

In those circumstances, 100/5 wasn't surprising, and 200/6 represented a reasonable achievement, albeit not exactly what one would call a winning position, especially as conditions for batting are only going to improve, one would have thought. New Zealand's luck was especially blighted when the dangerous Jimmy Anderson decided to turn up instead of the hapless and wayward Jimmy Anderson (surely it is one of 2008's finest ironies that Harmison, fired for his inconsistency, was replaced by Anderson, his only real rival for Jeckell and Hyde standards of consistency).

Not unsurprisingly a couple of New Zealanders batted as though they were still playing 20/20, and even less surprisingly only one of them had any success; McCullum again showed his class (why this is not manifested in a better test record I don't know, but he is making progress towards making amends) whereas Taylor just looked inept.

All in all the day contained few surprises when one considers that New Zealand's top five has less experience combined than Alaistair Cook alone, the most junior of England's top order. Sad to see Aaron Redmond failing to score in his first test innings, when his father famously began with 107, but perhaps he will continue the obverse of his father's career and end with 100 tests to his name instead of one.

Selfishly, of course, my personal aim for the test is to ensure a day's play on Sunday. It hardly seems a year since I was there last. Meanwhile back to cricinfo, and resenting the likes of Rafer Janders who manages to go to the ground midweek while the rest of us wage slaves have only the computer and the lunchtime pub ... no resentment at all ... .