The Sunday Times - UK (2022-06-05)

14 June 5, 2022The Sunday Times 2GS

Cricket England v New Zealand: First Test

Alastair

Cook

Marshall went

over twice to

inspire Wigan

Wigan

ease back

into the

day job

After three days spent

celebrating their

Challenge Cup

triumph last

weekend,

Wigan

Warriors’

hangover was

brief. Minds were back

on the job in

impressively overcoming

a groggy first 25 minutes

at The Jungle.

RUGBY LEAGUE

After successive league defeats

heading into the final with

Huddersfield Giants, Wigan could

not afford another if they were to

maintain hopes of a double.

At 12-0 down to two converted

Castleford Tigers tries, Wigan

rattled off 32 unanswered points to

go third above Huddersfield, behind

Catalans Dragons and St Helens.

Wigan lifted the cup for a 20th

time after a nine-year hiatus and

have the Grand Final in their sights.

Liam Marshall, the match winner at

the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium,

scored his 100th and 101st career

tries in his 100th league game.

“He’s playing well, but the more

English players playing well bodes

nicely for Shaun [Wane, the

England coach] and the World Cup

in the autumn,” Matt Peet, the

Warriors head coach, said.

“The two league games before

the final were bugging me and the

group, so to have such a committed

performance shows the progress.”

The Warriors had quivered

beneath a fusillade of high kicks.

From one spill by Bevan French,

Greg Eden strolled across from Jake

Trueman’s astute delivery. When

Kenny Edwards carved past four

tacklers, the visitors were all at sea.

It was when Mahe Fonua kicked

out at Liam Farrell and was sin-

binned that Wigan girded

themselves. Marshall scored from a

scrum, and when Castleford lost

Gareth O’Brien to injury, the home

side were prey to Wigan’s cavalier

approach. Jake Bibby and

Marshall’s kick set up a breathless

try for French.

The Tigers were still dusting

themselves down when Wigan,

throwing from touchline to

touchline, worked space for Farrell

to dispatch Abbas Miski, with the

Warriors in cruise control, to go

16-12 up.

Marshall’s second try was a

demonstration of brazen self-

confidence. Two defenders failed to

hold up Bibby over the line. Farrell

added a sixth try near the end.

Star man Liam Marshall, Wigan Warriors.

Scorers: Castleford Tigers: Tries Eden 7min,

Edwards 24. Goals O’Brien (2). Wigan Warriors:

Tries Marshall 33, 54, French 44, Miski 48, Bibby

60, Farrell 77. Goals Smith (4).

Castleford Tigers R Hampshire; D Olpherts, B

Faraimo, M Fonua, G Eden; J Trueman, G O’Brien; L

Watts, P McShane, G Griffin, K Edwards, G Lawler,

J Westerman. Interchange A Milner, N Massey, D

Smith, S Matagi.

Wigan Warriors B French; A Miski, I Thornley, J

Bibby, L Marshall; J Field, H Smith; B Singleton, S

Powell, L Byrne, L Farrell, W Isa, K Ellis.

Interchange P Mago, O Partington, E Havard, J

Shorrocks.

Referee J Child.

CASTLEFORD TIGERS 12

WIGAN WARRIORS 32

Chris Irvine

suddenly there are people coming

and going very quickly.

Although you always say you

should keep the changing-room the

same whether you’re doing well or

not, that is impossible. Those jokes

which were funny half an hour

before, nobody would dare say them

now. The chat is more like, “Unlucky

mate”, or “Come on buddy, fight

hard”. There would be no flippancy.

Even Graeme Swann would not have

dared. Mind you, he might have been

flippant at 6.35pm when everyone

had come back in.

England hit trouble in the final

hour of the first day, always a tricky

period. At 92 for two, you would have

hoped the attitude would have been,

“OK, let’s just get through to

stumps”. There were about 40-45

of most of the England players. They

have been playing plenty of County

Championship cricket and if you look

at their stats, apart from Crawley and

Bairstow, who has been playing at the

IPL, all of the top seven are averaging

58 or more. So five out of the top

seven have been scoring runs in

teams that have not been

collapsing. The trouble comes when

they are asked to perform under

scrutiny.

When a batting collapse is under

way, a dressing-room suddenly

becomes a very different place. It just

goes so quiet. At 50-odd for no

wicket, it would have been a nice,

relaxed place. The bowlers might be

doing a crossword and Anderson

might be having a relaxing massage.

Then a wicket or two falls and

Pope is cleaned up

by Trent Boult

yesterday during

England’s second

innings. He was out

driving in the first

E

ngland had some

unbelievable opportunities

to put this first Test match to

bed at a very early stage. At

various times on the opening

day, New Zealand were 45 for

seven, and later 132 all out.

England’s openers then took

them to 59 for no wicket. If they had

continued to bat well in the first

innings, there would have been no

realistic way back for the opposition.

Instead, as their advantage slipped

away they must have been asking

themselves, if you don’t go on and

win games from those positions,

when will you?

The first thing to say is that

England’s bowling during the first

two hours of the game was as good as

I can remember. I was thinking that if

I had been facing Stuart Broad and

James Anderson on the Lord’s slope

with the way they were bowling in

those conditions, I wouldn’t have

backed myself to last very long. They

gave you nothing to hit.

When Broad goes around the

wicket, creating the angles that he

did, it is very difficult. He only has to

get the odd one to go straight on to

force you to play at those balls on

fourth or fifth stump — like Devon

Conway did when he got out —

because you’re so worried about the

ball that does not nip away. If the

Dukes ball is nipping around like that

in English conditions, you know that

England will make it very hard —

whoever they select in the bowling

attack. They were on the money

again yesterday morning with the

second new ball, in a passage of play

that threw the game wide open.

New Zealand bowled well too but

the difference was that when England

batted first time, Alex Lees and Zak

Crawley had done a lot of the hard

work. They got through the first 15

overs of the new ball, but then look at

some of the dismissals — Crawley out

to a big drive; Lees leg-before

standing way outside off stump,

something I can’t quite get my head

around; Jonny Bairstow playing a

forcing shot. It is very hard to ever

criticise Joe Root’s batting but he will

know that his dismissal — caught in

the gully off Colin de Grandhomme —

wasn’t the best shot he’s ever played.

Ben Stokes was also out to a big drive

and Ollie Pope nicked a ball on sixth

or seventh stump.

One of the problems for a team

who keep on collapsing, as England

do, is their opponents know that

even during a good partnership, a

collapse could be just around the

corner. Good sides might collapse

one time in seven, great sides one in

15, but this England team are doing it

much more often than that.

I know they will have talked about

it in the changing-room and in

meetings, but the only way to remedy

such a problem is for the players to

The jokes stop, a hush

descends and that

feeling of ‘here we

go again’ – batting

collapses pollute

the dressing-room

deliver. They are the only ones who

can change it — not in meetings, but

out in the middle. When they were

losing five wickets for eight runs in 28

balls they must have felt, “Oh my

God, here we go again”. Yes, Kyle

Jamieson and De Grandhomme

tightened things up but the openers

had negated a lot of the pressure with

the start they had given England.

These are the times when you

need the ability to soak up the

pressure, as Daryl Mitchell and Tom

Blundell did brilliantly on the second

day. Later in the day, they did not

look like getting out because they had

done the hard work and the ball had

gone soft.

While you could reasonably say

that New Zealand were rusty coming

into this Test, the same was not true