Scoreboard vindicates Cook’s decision to dismiss follow-on

His captaincy career never recovered.

It is doubtful whether Alastair Cook feared a similar fate when he took the opposite course of action yesterday.

After New Zealand scored 174 in reply to England’s 354, Cook chose to bat again despite his bowlers having been out in the field for just 43.4 overs.

It was a decision that inspired plenty of debate and one which, if you were in Cook’s position, was perhaps understandable.

Although it reduced England’s chances of winning if a poor weather forecast for tomorrow is to be believed, it also nullified New Zealand’s prospects of prevailing and thereby levelling the two-match series.

With effectively seven sessions left in the match, there was time aplenty for England to build an unassailable lead, for foot-holes to widen to assist the spin of Graeme Swann, and for a demoralised New Zealand to become ever more dispirited.

The counter-argument was that Cook’s bowlers were fresh, that it would have been a clear statement of attacking intent and that New Zealand could not have been relied on to provide greater resistance second time around.

All academic now, of course.

The modern way is to travel the path traversed by Cook and to bat one’s opponents out of contention, turning the screw in a different sort of way.

If Cook wanted justification, he would probably have simply pointed at the scoreboard.

At stumps on day three, England were 116-1, a lead of 296, and well-placed to possibly declare around lunchtime today.

Leading from the front was Cook himself, who scored an unbeaten 88 from 132 balls with 13 fours.

It was a typically composed and classy contribution, although England could perhaps have batted with a touch more brio.

Trent Boult, the left-arm pace bowler, was off the field for the latter part of the day after aggravating an old side injury, while Kane Williamson, the part-time off-spinner, returned 1-32 from 15 overs – an economy rate that would hardly have disgraced Saeed Ajmal.

England’s batting was more the product of function than flair, although there is every reason to suppose they could still win today.

Swann, who returned their best figures of 4-42, defended the decision not to enforce the follow-on.

“There is an awful lot of cricket to be played in this game and there are no demons in the pitch,” he said.

“The longer we can bat and allow the foot holes to wear gives us the greatest opportunity of winning the game.

“We’re here to win a Test match and, whatever it is that gives us the best chance of doing that, we will do it.

“Obviously it might upset a few people who had booked out of hotels and what have you, but I think they should cash in and get their money’s worth.”

After the Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow show on day two, when Root scored his maiden Test century and Bairstow a typically entertaining fifty, there was something of an After the Lord Mayor’s Show feel about this sun-kissed Sunday.

True, the cricket was often entertaining and engaging, but the Yorkshire duo had been so utterly dynamic that it was as though the crowd had arrived with a cricketing hangover.

England did their best to shake that off by losing their final three wickets in the first 25 minutes after they resumed on 337-7.

Matt Prior drove loosely at the 10th ball of the morning, bowled by Tim Southee, and Ross Taylor snaffled a reflex slip catch in front of his face.

Steven Finn battered Boult for four down the ground, but was cleaned up next ball when the bowler sent his off stump reeling.

The innings ended when James Anderson tried to turn Boult to leg but got a leading edge back to him, Boult returning 5-57 from 22 overs, his second five-wicket haul in Tests.

When New Zealand batted, it initially seemed they were a side transformed after their 68 all-out humiliation in the first Test at Lord’s, which they lost by 170 runs. Openers Peter Fulton and Hamish Rutherford coped comfortably with everything thrown at them by the new-ball pair of Anderson and Broad, with Fulton unfurling some delightful drives through the mid-wicket region.

Then, out of the clear blue sky came a deluge of dismissals.

Twenty-five minutes before lunch, Fulton tried to work Finn to leg and was caught-and-bowled.

Then, on the stroke of the interval, Rutherford, having several times looked as if he was trying to get out by driving loosely at Finn outside off-stump, eventually did so, picking out Ian Bell in the gully.

In the fourth over after lunch, Finn struck again when he induced Ross Taylor to chop into his stumps.

It was Finn’s height and bounce that caused the problems on a day when there was precious little movement through the air.

After the Middlesex man blew a hole in the New Zealand top-order, Swann exploded it further by collecting the next three wickets in the space of seven balls.

With the final delivery of his opening over he bowled Dean Brownlie through the gate before repeating the feat with the fourth ball of his second over, which spun even more viciously and was much too good for Martin Guptill.

Brendon McCullum got off the mark by edging his first ball from Swann narrowly past Root at short-leg before Swann’s next delivery accounted for Williamson, given out lbw on review after umpire Marais Erasmus rejected the appeal.

McCullum and Southee briefly stopped the rot by swatting 37 from 41 balls before Southee was seventh out with the total on 119, lbw to Broad after replays showed the ball struck the pad just before the bat made contact.

Swann had Doug Bracewell taken at silly-point and McCullum edged Broad behind before an incongruous last-wicket stand of 52 between Boult and Neil Wagner.

The pair clattered their runs from just 22 balls, Boult striking three straight sixes off Swann and Wagner bludgeoning four fours in an over off Broad.

Anderson ended the mayhem by bowling Wagner, his 306th Test wicket on a day when many thought he would go past the 307 of the late, great Fred Trueman.

That will have to wait for another time – possibly today.

When England batted again, Cook dominated the opening stand with Nick Compton, who looked horribly short of form and confidence.

Compton’s desperation for runs was evidenced by the embarrassing nature of his dismissal; after clearly inside-edging Williamson to short-leg, he tragically stood his ground before an equally tragic decision by umpire Steve Davis was overturned on review.

Following back-to-back hundreds in Dunedin and Wellington, Compton’s Test scores read as follows: 13, 2, 16, 15, 1 and 7.

A very public ordeal may not last much longer.

Spectators who bought a ticket for the opening day washout can gain entry for £20 at Headingley today. Under-16s will pay £5, while the club have granted free tickets to 200 service personnel from the Yorkshire Regiment based at Catterick.