Madness reigns at the Home of Cricket
Seventeen wickets fall as headless batting meets inspired bowling, PLUS: The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be.
Some quick-hit thoughts on the cricket.
Stumps day one: NZ 132, England 116-7
1. Cape Town redux
England coach Brendon McCullum could have been forgiven for thinking he’d seen the movie before as he watched former teammate Kane Williamson buy into the “look up, not down” mantra at the toss.
As New Zealand slumped to 27-5, both might have been thinking, “Newlands, out for 45, anyone?”
Unless this pitch breaks up badly, this was a misread by Williamson and his brainstrust. Right from the start the ball swung and it nipped off the seam, sometimes counter to Lord’s pronounced slope.
That makes batting awfully difficult, especially against the Duke’s ball. There was always a chance the risk would outweigh the reward in those circumstances but blushes were saved somewhat by the fact it offered plenty all day.
The score of 132 flattered New Zealand. The Black Caps suffered from mental befuddlement combined with technical paralysis in an awful first session. They pushed at outswingers and left in-duckers. It was tough going against the previously jilted James Anderson and Stuart Broad, and debutant Matt Potts, but there was a sense the top order were waiting for their names to be called to the gallows.
They are collectively out of form. They were 18-6 in Chelmsford against a scratch team and 36-6 here. That’s coming off the back of a test against South Africa where they were 81-4 and 91-5.
Since the start of the test series against South Africa, openers Tom Latham and Will Young (regular readers will know how I feel about his talents being wasted by trying to programme him into a test opener) have scored 29 runs between them in eight innings. They are certainly setting the tone - the wrong tone.
Is this a good time to mention that in 11 innings against England in England, Williamson has been dismissed for less than 20 eight times.
2. Simon Doull lobs in a Double-Happy
There was plenty to ponder before play began, as New Zealand opted to include Ajaz Patel and Trent Boult.
While few could argue with Patel’s inclusion, the noise around Boult has been interesting. We started the week being told he was unlikely, given he’d just arrived from the IPL final on May 30.
Coach Gary Stead was more equivocal as the week wore on and last night Boult was in the XI.
Doull, who is part of the host broadcaster commentary team, implied that Williamson made the call and it was probably not what Stead would have chosen. Given the former New Zealand paceman has retained close ties to several senior players, it’s likely this was informed comment rather than speculation.
The pressure was on Boult to justify his inclusion on such scant red-ball preparation and it was worrying to see Colin de Grandhomme, NZ’s best batter with 42 not out, bowling his wobblers in the eighth over.
All was well, however, when in a frenetic final half hour when Boult took the wickets of Jonny Bairstow and Potts in one over and could have had Broad about four times before stumps were drawn.
3. A smile on Kyle’s dial
Kyle Jamieson was New Zealand’s best bowler. New Zealand looked a little insipid early despite the assistance from the pitch and it was Jamieson’s injection into the attack that changed the nature of the match.
Suddenly the talk in the commentary box changed from how England could bat New Zealand out of the game to the visitors aren’t out of this yet.
This test is both ridiculously advanced and yet finely poised. The first session tonight is critical.
England v NZ, 1st test Lord’s, continues tonight 10pm, Spark Sport
NB. I will post Notes from Lord’s (more accurately Notes From My Living Room About Lord’s) every morning for paying subscribers. I’ll also be talking after each day’s play to the redoubtable Andrew Alderson, though this might appear later in the day. Here’s our Day 1 pleasantries.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
It was all about the Silver Lake deal and the vote by the provincial unions, a “transformational moment” according to New Zealand Rugby chairman Stewart Mitchell, yet one tinged with uncertainty.
Silver Lake has paid $200 million for a stake in a new entity, CommercialCo, that will control all revenue-generating assets of NZR.
An additional co-investment of up to $100m will be offered to New Zealand-based institutional investors later in 2022. Silver Lake could invest more at this point to pick-up any funding shortfall and be left with a stake between 5.7-8.6 percent.
Almost $37 of the $200m windfall will be distributed almost as soon as the money is transferred with $1million going to each of the NPC provinces, $500,000 to the Heartland unions, $2m to Maori Rugby, $7.5m to clubs and $5m to the Players’ Association.
Some have mistakenly conflated these figures with the idea that Silver Lake is committed to funding NZR from the grassroots up. Not so. These were the sweeteners NZR had to make to get the Silver Lake deal across the line.
Make no mistake, Silver Lake has bought into Brand All Blacks. When they talk about increasing revenues, as former CEO Steve Tew was fond of saying it doesn’t matter where you input the numbers, it all comes back to the All Blacks.
If you thought playing Australia in a Bledisloe cup match in Hong Kong was a bit weird, wait until you see the All Blacks playing a UFC All-Star XV in an exhibition match on a floating pitch off the coast of Abu Dhabi.
In Stuff, Paul Cully takes the view the deal was a response to rugby’s existential crisis.
In the Herald, Gregor Paul explains why the next few months will be turbulent, but more pointedly explains how NZR was desperate to lower their expenses that were linked to revenue. It had stood at 54 percent (36.5 percent to players; 17.5 to unions) but they wanted to get it to 47 by dropping the percentage of revenue players would receive. Not only did they fail in that mission, but if you add the percentage that will go to Silver Lake, they now have more than 60 percent of their costs linked to revenue.
“If the model was considered broken before, what exactly is it now?” Paul asks.
It was interesting that on the day the deal was signed off, the ties between South African rugby and Europe were strengthened.
The Stormers, Bulls and Sharks, who qualified second, fourth and fifth from the United Rugby Championship (URC), will play in the Champions Cup. The Lions, who finished 12th, will play in the Challenge Cup, while the Cheetahs, who have not played in the URC, have been invited into the event.
“This is a crucial step forward in bringing to life our vision of growing the game and our own tournaments, continuing to deliver strong returns for our leagues and creating an ever-higher standard of mouth-watering matches for our fans,” said European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) chairman Dominic McKay.
Ukraine beat Scotland 3-1 to move within one game of the Fifa World Cup finals. Wright Thompson, the most writerly of the modern American sportswriters, travelled to Kiev to watch the game, which was in Scotland.
The hotel fronted a big square with a monastery at one end. This is head coach Oleksandr Petrakov’s favorite place in the city, where he “feels his soul rest” as he told me a few weeks ago. Parked in between the Intercontinental and the gold domes of the church were burned out wrecks of Russian military vehicles. A steady line of citizens walked solemnly, visitors at a strange museum. They looked closely at these alien tombs. The day before the game, one of those pilgrims was Petrakov's daughter, Viktoria.
She stood next to a destroyed tank.
A cloud passed over her face as she tried to explain how she felt standing here. Finally she found the right word: happy. It made her happy to stand so close to the place where her enemies perished.
“This is what death looks like,” Viktoria said to me, and then almost to herself, “I hate f***ing Russians.”
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
The weekend shapes as the highlight of the Super Rugby season. Four matches that all mean something, none of them a given (although you’d have to say the Reds are the longest of long shots to beat the Crusaders).
Although the Brumbies are a hard watch, it will be intriguing to see if the mercurial Hurricanes can find a way to get them out of the grind.
The Chiefs tickled up the Waratahs in round robin play but are still susceptible to the odd stinker, and while in some ways it would be a travesty if the Highlanders beat the Blues you can’t completely rule it out.
Crusaders v Reds, Christchurch, tonight 7.05pm; Chiefs v Waratahs, Hamilton, tomorrow, 4.35pm; Blues v Highlanders, Auckland, tomorrow 7.05pm; Brumbies v Hurricanes, Canberra, tomorrow, 9.45pm all Sky Sport 1
Watched a bit of Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinal the other day as it fell in a friendly time zone. It was entertaining in a claggy, clay court kind of way. I’m just going to assume Nadal wins his 900th tournament on dirt and instead focus on Pole Iga Świątek (pictured) and her bid for a second French Open title, with an 18-year-old American in her way.
Iga Świątek v Coco Gauff, Paris, Sunday 1am, Sky Sport 2
The NBA finals don’t match up with our weekend unfortunately (game 1 is today at lunchtime, game 2 on Monday), but there’s an intriguing NHL Western Conference semifinal to savour. Edmonton Oilers were once the gold standard but, like all Canadian franchises, they have fallen on fallow times. In Connor McDavid, they now have the best player in hockey and while they’re still an imperfect team, he has reignited a fanbase and given hope to a country.
Edmonton Oilers v Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton, Sunday 12pm, ESPN
I can’t in good conscious, keep sending you to the NZ Warriors. They’re on, but if you insist you’re going to have to find them yourselves.
Thanks Dylan, at this rate it will be all over inside three days! The continuing poor form of Kane Williamson is a big worry eh? Very interesting call about Trent Boult.