92nd Final: New Zealand 234-5 (Mitchell 82 Blundell 50) Potts starts from the rugby grandstand. He maintains yesterday’s decent, tight, inquiring length, but luck continues to elude him as Mitchell drops, as Foakes sinks through Root on the first slide to try to drag the edge and stop it at the deck. That was Root all day
“We all like to laugh well,” writes John Starbuck, “but does any other sport celebrate both prafalls and cricket?” Baskets loaded with “goggles and own goals” videos suggest that football is also a good hit.
91st: New Zealand 232-5 (Mitchell 80 Blundell 50) Jamie Overton gets the first use of the old 10-overs ball, from Kirkstall Lane End. A makeshift field with two slips but two men in the depths is ready for him. Mitchell drives him away for a single second ball to put NZ into operation during the day. Then Blundell is square by one who spits brutally on the surface and hits him near the shoulder, this is what Overton offers. A simple rush follows the next ball. And Mitchell does the same to keep things going. The first limit of the day – a splash beyond the second slip that speeds up the ropes – then makes Blundell’s 50 appear, another half-century achieved.
Ben Stokes leads England, Blundell and Mitchell follow them. Headingley looks glorious.
A note of encouragement for NZ and a presentiment for England:
Here’s your overseas TMS link – thanks to Raiza Ballim for the warning.
“Speaking of weird dismissals,” writes 1980s sports guru Steve Pye, “I’ve always had a weakness for Wayne Phillips and the 1985 Ashes incident. It probably helps that I’m English.”
Yes, I remember, a huge moment. Australia had been investigating and recovering from the Richard Ellison-inspired sinking of the night before, then this strange dismissal reopened it. An English victory devised by players that quickly faded from prominence internationally: Ellison and Tim Robinson.
Wayne Phillips is caught by David Gower after the ball bounces off Allan Lamb’s boot in the 1985 Ashes series. Photo: Patrick Eagar / Getty Images
Updated at 10.45 BST
True to forecasts, this morning is a bit cloudy on LS6. The ball is still pretty new. England will have opportunities.
It’s not usually that a spinner takes center stage on the first day in Headingley, but in this place things happen around Jack Leach and, after playing well with the hard ball, he took the most talked about port in the series. And here is a preview of our Jonathan Liew:
Although those who have played the game on one more level, eh, rudimentary, know that this kind of thing happens in this great game of ours:
Preamble
Who would have thought, at the start of this series, that his two most invariable New Zealand hitters would be Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell? But for the third straight test, here we are, the couple joins their restorative associations at Lord’s and Trent Bridge with another at Headingley, which meant a day that seemed decided in England ended up being matched.
Of course, if England hadn’t been so curiously shy in choosing not to check out a denied lbw stonewall scream against Mitchell when at eight, she might be filling that preamble with more screams at the Red-Ball Reset. We may do this later, of course: this test is very well prepared and a couple of ports in the first hour will put the hosts up again on a surface that seems like a pleasure to beat.
The weather, however, could become a little more Headingley in the coming days, which could add a note of danger and put a spring in the footsteps of bowling players. Either way, you’ll want to keep following. It’s Leeds, where things are happening, as we saw with the extravagant dismissal of Henry Nicholls yesterday.
Take it all. The game starts at 11:00 BST.