- England pushed on from 319-5 to 499 all out on day three as Harry Brook hit 171
- Ben Stokes’ side then reduced New Zealand to 155-6, just four runs ahead of them
- Brydon Carse impressed again with three wickets as Chris Woakes also took three
Two wickets in two balls for Chris Woakes – playing, perhaps, for his Test career – put England on course for victory in the first Test against New Zealand on another dramatic day at Hagley Oval.
With the hosts 133 for three in their second innings, and Kane Williamson looking to make amends for his near-miss 93 in the first, New Zealand had cut the deficit to 18. Daryl Mitchell had bedded in, and the pitch was sleepy. England needed a wicket.
Woakes obliged, and then some. First he nipped one back into Williamson’s front pad – enough to persuade umpire Rod Tucker to uphold the lbw shout. When Williamson asked for a review, DRS suggested umpire’s call on impact with off stump, and New Zealand’s greatest player, having ticked off 9,000 Test runs, was out for 61.
The next ball, to wicketkeeper Tom Blundell, went the other way, straightening off the seam to kiss the outside edge so imperceptibly that Blundell instantly called for a review. It could not save him.
Glenn Phillips repelled the hat-trick ball, but the mood had changed on the third evening of a game which England had spent the previous four sessions grabbing by the scruff.
They had spent the morning, and the half hour after lunch, turning their overnight 319 for five into an imposing 499, with Harry Brook finally out for 171, taking his Test average back above 60, and Ben Stokes making 80 in the city of his birth – his joint-highest score since hitting Australia for 155 at Lord’s in 2023.
Almost unbelievably, Brook was dropped for a fifth time, on 147, with Phillips again the culprit in the gully. When Phillips, running back from point, put down Brydon Carse after lunch, it was the eighth catch New Zealand had missed in the innings. In a parallel universe, they are in control of this Test.
And their mood was not improved by England’s lower-order merriment. Gus Atkinson bashed 48 in 36 balls, and Carse an unbeaten 33 in 24. Between them, they hit five sixes, scattering the crowd on the grass banks that encircle this beautiful ground.
Given that Woakes had already come and gone for a single, edging a loose drive off Tim Southee, the argument that he is in the team partly for his runs at No 8 felt less convincing each time Atkinson and Carse cleared the ropes.
It all meant that by the time New Zealand resumed their second innings, 151 behind, Woakes was under pressure like never before. Wicketless in the first, when he was the most innocuous of England’s bowlers, he had now spent one and a half Tests this winter confirming the theory that he looks lost without the English Dukes ball.
Multan and Christchurch had left him with figures of two for 180, and the real possibility that this might be his final overseas Test. And if he wasn’t going to Australia next winter, would he play at all next summer? For Woakes, 36 in March, it did not bear thinking about.
He provided an immediate riposte, having Tom Latham caught low down at second slip by Brook for a single in the third over to give himself, and England, an early lift.
Carse then struck either side of tea. First Devon Conway, struggling for form, made a hash of a pull, allowing Atkinson to dive forward at mid-on and scoop up a low catch. Then Rachin Ravindra, who again promised more than he delivered, pulled a short ball to deep square leg, where Jacob Bethell – briefly dazzled by the sun – adjusted well to hold on.
At 64 for three, New Zealand craved stability, and it came from their middle-order engine room – Williamson, all class and glides, and the more muscular Mitchell. Shoaib Bashir began expensively, order was restored.
Then came Woakes. Yet England’s day was not done. Carse, their best bowler this winter, continued to burnish his CV, thudding one into Phillips’s pads and – crucially – wringing the on-field verdict out of Tucker. DRS had it clipping the top of leg bail, and New Zealand were 153 for six, just two ahead. It was Carse’s seventh wicket of the game.
Another blow or two, and England might have invoked the extra half-hour. As it is, they are well placed for a series lead that, at 45 for three on the second morning, looked like a figment of their imagination.
