England fall way short of achieving Test best

JOE ROOT pledged that England would come out “all guns blazing” in an effort to make the highest score ever to win a Test match.
Adam Lyth, left, and Alastair Cook took to the Headingley field yesterday hoping to chase down a record 455 to beat New Zealand. An hour later England had lost four wickets (Picture: Steve Riding).Adam Lyth, left, and Alastair Cook took to the Headingley field yesterday hoping to chase down a record 455 to beat New Zealand. An hour later England had lost four wickets (Picture: Steve Riding).
Adam Lyth, left, and Alastair Cook took to the Headingley field yesterday hoping to chase down a record 455 to beat New Zealand. An hour later England had lost four wickets (Picture: Steve Riding).

The Yorkshireman’s comments sounded fanciful and so it proved, England subsiding from their overnight 44-0 to 255 all-out in pursuit of 455 to beat New Zealand.

There is a fine line between positivity and pie-in-the-sky, and Root – for all his good intentions – crossed it with his remarks at close of play on the fourth evening.

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No side has ever scored more than 418 to win in the 138 years of Test cricket, and England never looked like threatening that statistic.

After the proverbial “big first hour”, the cliche beloved of professional cricketers, England had lost four wickets and scored 20 runs.

Run-chase over, if ever it was on, and England’s survival hopes soon disappeared.

Root himself was the third of those wickets to fall before noon, caught at short-leg off a firm clip off the spinner Mark Craig.

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There was an element of misfortune as Tom Latham, the fielder, somehow wrapped his arms around the ball after it struck him in the chest, but the shot was ill-judged and Root’s duck followed just a single in the first innings.

Statistically, it was the Yorkshireman’s worst performance in his 27 Tests.

All three Yorkshiremen, in fact, were back in the pavilion after 55 minutes’ play – a disappointment to the crowd of 2,127, which lifted the match aggregate to 43,971 – some 5,000 more than watched the corresponding fixture in 2013, and some 7,000 more than the crowds which saw the Sri Lanka Test at Headingley last summer.

Adam Lyth was the first to fall, the left-hander failing to add to his overnight 24 and edging to the wicketkeeper a good ball from Trent Boult that bounced and moved away.

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Gary Ballance never looked comfortable during his 28-minute stay, and he was bowled by a full delivery from Boult that cannoned into the stumps off his pads, leaving England 61-2.

When Ian Bell fell into the telegraphed trap of turning Craig to leg slip, with Kane Williamson, the catcher, having only just been moved to that position, followed by Root’s departure two balls later, England were 62-4 and the blazing guns had never been loaded.

Since his hundred against the West Indies at Antigua in April, Bell’s Test scores read 11, 1, 0, 0, 1, 29, 12 and 1, while Ballance’s last six innings are 8, 23, 1, 0, 29 and 6.

Alastair Cook, who started the day on 18, surveyed the carnage at the other end with the air of a man who knew that an uphill task had now become the equivalent of trying to scale the Yorkshire Three Peaks.

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The captain’s form – for so long under the microscope – is now one of England’s biggest pluses ahead of the Ashes.

By lunch, Cook had advanced to 40, having lost his fifth-wicket partner, Ben Stokes, just before the interval when the all-rounder edged behind an attempted cut shot off Williamson, ending a stand of 40 in 16 overs.

New Zealand did not take another wicket until 50 minutes after the break, Cook the man to go when golden arm Williamson removed him lbw for 56.

The decision, upheld on DRS despite the impact and hitting elements being umpire’s call, left England 141-6 and without the one man you might have banked on to bat out the day.

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During the course of his display, which followed 75 in the first innings that lifted him past Graham Gooch as England’s leading Test run-scorer, Cook became the youngest ever to reach 9,000 Test runs, aged 30 years and 159 days.

There was warm applause for him as he left the field, although he seemed much too disappointed for the acclaim to register.

Moeen Ali, who so nearly saved the Sri Lanka Test here last summer with his maiden Test hundred, made no impact this time as he left one from Matt Henry that hit his off stump.

When Williamson bowled Stuart Broad off a bottom edge, England were 188-8 and part-timer Williamson had half as many wickets in the match (three) as he had managed runs (six).

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Jos Buttler and Mark Wood added 42 for the ninth-wicket before the latter edged Tim Southee to second slip with the second new ball.

Buttler top-scored with 73 and was last out when he padded up to Craig, a suitably sorry finale for England.