England Cricket / Andrew Hughes / 06 March 2008 /

Andrew Hughes has been watching Steve Harmison's lacklustre performance in the first innings of this test match, and wonders whether the English press have underestimated this New Zealand side.

In the build up to this match, the English press, packed with ex-players prone to see things through mistily patriotic spectacles, made much of the fragility of the weakened New Zealand batting order and contrasted their record with the batting averages and lofty reputation of the England team. The impression was that this would be a walk in Hamilton Park for the tourists and as the patriotic pounds piled on, England were odds-on to win the First Test.

Two days in and you can back England at [16.0]. They trail the hosts by 383 runs with two batsmen already back in the pavilion. All of their plans are out of the window and they are in one of those familiar backs to the wall scraps they got themselves into far too often on their last overseas tour.

In fact, looking at the pitch at Hamilton Park, the England players could be forgiven for thinking they were still in Sri Lanka. In the recent one-day game here, there was plenty of pace and bounce on offer. But pace and bounce at Hamilton is derived entirely from the grass, rather than the ground itself. Take off the grass three days before the match and you will be left with a dry, placid track. Which is precisely what the groundsman did. And by a staggering coincidence, New Zealand have gone into this match with a two spinner strategy, knowing that the pitch would nullify the England quick bowlers, give their shaky top order some confidence and almost certainly take spin later in the game. Michael Vaughan losing the toss was an added bonus. England are now condemned to bat last on a surface that is already offering turn, bounce and ominous little puffs of dust for spinners Vettori and Patel. With three days of hot dry weather forecast, batting is not going to get any easier.

They haven't helped themselves of course. It is a risky enough tactic to go in with four front-line bowlers. When one of them is Steve Harmison, it is almost reckless. The listless and wayward manner in which he has gone about his business here is no surprise and should surely mean the end of his Test career. In his absence, the burden has fallen entirely on the square shoulders of Hoggard and Sidebottom. They are both excellent exponents of swing and it is true that Hamilton is a ground that enables swing bowling... for about ten overs. At that point, the Kookaburra ball stubbornly refuses to bend and they have no other options. No one in the current team can reverse swing and with Harmison mustering all the accuracy of a catapult on roller skates, they have no one to bang the ball in and exploit any uneven bounce later on. Collingwood and Pietersen have looked more effective than the wayward Durham man but neither have the guile to winkle out Test batsmen on more than an occasional basis. In these circumstances, it would take a vivid imagination to see England bowling the hosts out again on this pitch.

In fact, if it weren't for some loose strokes, New Zealand could be batting still. The list of players making their maiden centuries against England has been extended by a mature contribution from Ross Taylor and Jamie How probably deserved one too.

Of course, the assumption is that the pitch is so placid that England are bound to get a big score in reply. That is why the draw is available at the miserly [1.56] But it is a dangerous assumption. England in recent times have earned a reputation for not going on to get big scores, mustering only one century between them on the docile pitches in Sri Lanka. With the pitch likely to favour New Zealand more with every passing minute, a depleted bowling and batting line-up and a big first innings deficit to climb, New Zealand look very tempting at their current [3.2].

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