Black dot for Black Caps – 2005 tri-series final between England and Australia at Lord’s. The match ended in a tie and Nasser Hussain on air had quirped – This is almost like a win for England, because Australia don’t lose finals! Yes, those were the days. Coming to the theory of relativity, let’s quirp something about the Kiwis – they don’t drop catches! Especially after such a wonderful show in the previous Test. But that’s why we say in cricket – 9 times out of 10, he / she would have taken that catch. Friday was that one of 10 occasions. In the third over of the innings, Ben Duckett edged one off Nathan Smith straight to third slip – only to see Henry Nicholls shell a sitter. He was on 8 then and England on 8/1, having just lost Emilio Gay in the previous over. Then, in the 21st over, Duckett edged one again. This time off the bowling of Mitchell Santner. For some reason, Daryl Mitchell was standing at wide first slip, at a really unconventional position. In a normal scenario, he would have gobbled it as the ball went straight there, to the conventional position, to his right. Being wide, he could not even lay a finger on the ball. Duckett was on 74 at this stage, well set and dangerous – England were racing along at 120/1. Given the way the pitch has behaved, as England found out on Thursday, chances here are like Halley’s comet – very rare. And if a chance does come and you miss it, you have to wait an age for the next. Also, very un-New Zealandly, they just could not find a way to stop the home side’s scoring rate, which comes as a surprise, given the way they stifled the hosts at The Oval. Is Matt Henry that big a miss? None of the bowlers looked impressive and if the scoring went down in the final hour, it was more because of the fact that England had pulled the curtains down for the close. Additionally, having been hit by a Jofra Archer bouncer early in the day, Blair Tickner suffered concussion symptoms and got ruled out of the match. New Zealand did get a concussion replacement in the form of Zakary Foulkes, but only time will tell how good a replacement does that turn out to be.
