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New Zealand win the toss and choose to bowl first
Mitch Santner – not at all reminding me of the ‘Weatherfield One’ Deidre Barlow when he wears his oversized specs… wins the toss.
“Bit of grass so we’ve got to be smart with the wind,” says Santner. “But we think it’s going to play pretty well and will see if it does anything first up. We were close in the Australia series but think we played some good cricket. England bat deep and we know that. Try and take wickets throughout. Got to be smart. Try and get hit into the big side as much as possible.”
“We would’ve had a bowl, definitely,” says Harry Brook. “We got some stats that said it’s 50-50 either way. This is our main focus, with the T20 World Cup in the back of our mind. We always name our team early, to give people a bit of freedom and to let them prepare for the game.”
Like I said, don’t mention the little urn, no one else is. Nothing to see here.
As I namecheck Simon he sends me a lovely missive from the Hagley Oval. Well, lovely apart from the bit about the possibility of precipitation.
Kia Ora from lovely Christchurch. Such a lovely city to visit - everything’s wonderfully walkable, easily navigable and, at least until you get to the edge of town, completely flat (and those hills are also wonderfully walkable). It’s a sellout at Hagley Oval tonight and the grass banks that ring the ground are looking pretty full already, with half an hour until the start. It’s a beautiful ground but completely exposed and as such irredeemably useless in the event of rain - talking of which, there hasn’t been so much of a drop since England arrived here on Wednesday, but forecasts suggest that run - and, in cricketing terms, the runs - will end at around 9pm this evening. We’ll wait and see on that, it’s a near-perfect early evening as I type.”
Pitch black early morning here Burnto, I’m in my fleece and slippers nursing a vat of Kenco. But it is dry. So I win? Perhaps not.
Simon Burnton is our man on the ground, I hope he’s been having as nice a time as Harry Brook and his men ahead of this first match of the tour…
Brendon McCullum took his team to Queenstown in New Zealand’s Southern Alps where, in Harry Brook’s words, they were “just left to our own devices”. There was some hiking, a bit of go-karting and, inevitably, a lot of golf.
“We had an amazing time,” Brook said. “They’ve got some amazing golf courses down there and we were lucky enough to get on a couple of them. A couple of lads managed to get out and explore Queenstown. We had a few drinks here and there and team meals.
“We had a lot of fun – it was about trying to spend a bit of time together because we don’t really get that in the white-ball [team]. If you’re having a lot of fun off the field and enjoying spending time with the lads, then it’s going to be even better on the field. So I encourage everybody under mine and Baz’s leadership to just enjoy themselves.”
Preamble
James Wallace
Winter is coming here.
Hello and welcome to the start of England’s epic winter of cricket. To start things off, a three match T20I series followed by three ODIs against New Zealand. Today’s match will begin in about half an hour in Christchurch.
Don’t call it an Ashes warm up game. No honestly. Don’t mention the A word at all. Jacob Bethell gets a sparkling ton against the Black Caps today? Pay it never mind, there’s a T20 World Cup on the horizon, all roads do not lead to Perth on the 21st November. Ahem.
The coin will be tossed shortly but we already know the sides with both teams confirming their XI’s in advance.
New Zealand: 1 Tim Seifert (wk), 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Tim Robinson, 4 Mark Chapman, 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Michael Bracewell, 7 James Neesham, 8 Mitchell Santner (c), 9 Kyle Jamieson, 10 Matt Henry, 11 Jacob Duffy.
England: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Jacob Bethell, 4 Harry Brook (c), 5 Tom Banton, 6 Sam Curran, 7 Jordan Cox, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Liam Dawson, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Luke Wood.
It’s early for a Saturday morning here in Blighty but if you are tuning in then give us a shout in the usual way.
