Tuesday 26 March 2013

Testing Times (I)

I'm not a huge cricket fan, but I do like to follow test matches, especially England's. The recent series against New Zealand has definitely been on my radar, and ended in a pretty dramatic fashion today.  England scraped a draw in the third test, drawing the series 0-0, becoming only the third side to avoid defeat by batting through the final day, starting from four wickets down.  With New Zealand taking the eighth and ninth wickets with just three overs to go, it must have been incredibly tense in the stadium.

Still, you have to feel sorry for New Zealand.  Despite being one of the minnows of test cricket, ranked eighth of nine recognise test-playing nations, they outplayed England for two of the three tests.  In addition to setting England a mammoth total in the most recent game, they skittled England's batting order in the first innings of the first test, forcing another second-innings fightback.  As a Englishman, I'm familiar with the bitter taste of sporting victory not quite grasped, so I have to emphasize with a New Zealand team that arguably deserved better.

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