Watch cricket video highlights of New Zealand tour of England 2024. 3rd Test between New Zealand and England. Venue of the match will be Hamilton.
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A plush camel sporting a captain’s cap stands at one end of Seddon Park, which makes it even less scary than other cricket stadiums. However, it has been a bastion for the New Zealand Test team, and on day two against England, they won all the important battles as they attempted to halt a record of four straight home losses. Will O’Rourke and Mitchell Santner had a thrilling last-wicket partnership that kept England on the field for the first hour of the day as they tried to finish the innings.
As the game came to a conclusion, the hosts made good headway into an unbeatable position, and Kane Williamson was going away undefeated after scoring his 12th fifty-plus in Hamilton. After Matt Henry had hit the head, Santner and O’Rourke joined forces once more to tear at the England innings in the meantime. In the span of eight deliveries, O’Rourke destroyed Nos. 3, 4, and 5 on the England card, including the top two hitters in the world based on the ICC’s rankings, with a blistering spell of unnerving bounce, crisp movement, and 145 kph/90 mph velocity.
In his opening over, Santner broke the recovery stand between Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope. Henry then came back to dock the tail as England finished with a horrific 8 for 66. Tim Southee, the “Sexy Camel” whose imminent retirement accounts for the dromedary mascot, was the only member of New Zealand’s four-man attack who did not end up in the wickets. Although his team’s surprising domination did jeopardize Southee’s hopes of attaining another milestone, he will probably have another opportunity to end on a positive note.
Someone in the New Zealand think tank will undoubtedly make sure he bats at some stage on Monday as he has 100 Test sixes in his sights. It looked as though the Bazball relaunch had encountered yet another setback when England’s hopes of winning a 3-0 series sweep faded during the evening session, with Young and Williamson adding 89 for the second wicket after Gus Atkinson had forced Tom Latham to chop on.
In Wellington and Christchurch, they had battled their way out of tough opening-innings positions to build an unbeatable 2-0 lead, but here they collapsed to allow a 204-run deficit. They had no blazing Harry Brook knock to save them this time. After hitting game-changing hundreds in the first two Test matches, he may have exhausted his luck, but when he left first ball in the 16th over, New Zealand undoubtedly felt the tide of the contest shift in their favor. It was O’Rourke who started it.
However, on the field where he took nine wickets on his debut earlier this year, the 6ft 4in fast bowled well after lunch, leaving England reeling at 82 for 5. He had bowled admirably throughout the series without much reward. He first used a back-of-a-length approach to move Jacob Bethell over; Bethell’s hard-handed drive went to backward point when the ball was pitched up. Perhaps a little unfortunate, Brook defended down into the ground as he fell to the in-ducker, but the ball bounced up and flicked off the leg bail.
The outcome was his first golden duck of the season and the first time a bowler from New Zealand had removed him for less than fifty. Joe Root’s late cut went directly to Young at backward point in O’Rourke’s following over, demonstrating once more the power of bounce and movement. After a lively comeback partnership of 52 in 13 overs between Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope, Santner dismissed both players in three deliveries. For the third consecutive Test, Pope had successfully counterpunched, but he propped forward limply and veered an edge to slip.
Stokes missed a slog-sweep and was leg before wicket in Santner’s subsequent delivery. As Henry went back to attacking and forced Atkinson to give him a meek lob to mid-on, the parade went on. England had lost their final five wickets in five overs for nine more runs when Matt Potts was caught throwing the bat at Henry after Brydon Carse edged a return catch back to Santner. England’s lowest first-inning total since their debut under Brendon McCullum in June 2022 was 143 all out.
Henry had kept Zak Crawley under control throughout his opening stint, dismissing him for the seventh time in as many innings. In response to 347, England got off to a quick start, reaching 32 for 0 in four overs as Southee was once again dismissed without fanfare. Crawley even managed to score his first runs of the series against Henry. However, the relief was short. Crawley was only able to achieve a leading edge off the third ball Henry threw to him, which was picked up one-handed in the bowler’s follow-through.
Replays promptly verified fingers under the ball, lowering Crawley’s record to five runs and five dismissals from 22 balls against Henry in the series. Crawley lingered for the third umpire to inspect. Duckett was dismissed by Henry in the same over as a ball sailed in and struck his rear leg in front of the middle stump. In 15 mostly trouble-free overs, Santner and O’Rourke added 32 runs to the overnight total, frustrating England. That mini-session was the complete opposite of what had come before.
The two were content to go along with the field spread for Santner, with O’Rourke’s inside edge to fine leg—which resulted in his first boundary in 19 innings as an international cricket player—possibly providing the greatest excitement. In the eighth over of the day, O’Rourke was caught behind off Atkinson, but technology showed that the ball had flicked the trouser leg, forcing Ahsan Raza to reverse his judgment. After drinks, Potts finally used the first ball to conclude a game of cat and mouse, but the tone for the day was already established.
