England XI 465 (Brook 97, Lawrence 85, Root 77, Foakes 57) vs New Zealand XI
As England’s tour match at Seddon Park drifted to an inevitably tame conclusion, the prospect of additional fine-tuning forward of the sequence opener in Mount Maunganui was thrown into doubt with warnings of an incoming tropical cyclone.
On Thursday the MetService issued a warning that Cyclone Gabrielle would hit the higher of New Zealand’s North Island from Sunday morning, bringing gusts of as much as 150kph and as a lot as 300mm of rain initially of the week. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has prolonged the state of emergency for an extra seven days consequently, per week after torrential rains prompted widespread harm to the area. The Coromandel Peninsula, which sits simply above Mount Maunganui, has adopted go well with.
England are attributable to arrive on Sunday with the primary Test beginning subsequent Thursday (February 16). The first three days of subsequent week had been considered as the perfect lead-in to deliver gamers absolutely as much as scratch, supplementing the 4 days coaching on the venue earlier within the tour, and this week in Hamilton, which culminates in an optionally available session on Friday morning (February 9). Now that build-up appears underneath severe risk.
“Some characters don’t need warm-up games,” McCullum stated. “The bigger the competition, the more they step up. He [Stokes] has never been a warm-up-game kind of guy and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”
Anderson and Broad opened proceedings, reunited after Broad missed Pakistan for the delivery of his first youngster, and it was the latter who acquired the ball rolling, taking a pointy return catch off William O’Donnell. Anderson was made to attend till the 73rd over, eradicating Curtis Heaphy, caught at first slip by Joe Root as soon as the lights had taken over for the primary time within the match. However, he did have an effect on a dismissal earlier with the run-out of Robert O’Donnell.
Up to now, Stone’s return to motion had been white-ball solely: for Warwickshire, Chennai Braves within the T10, MI Cape Town within the SA20 and the primary two ODIs of England’s sequence with South Africa, earlier than flying to New Zealand. Here, he bowled with good tempo, finally snaring Sunde with a pointy supply eliciting a twitch outdoors off stump from the right-hander.
Potts, Stone and Broad will probably be vying for one spot within the XI for the primary Test, with Anderson, Robinson and Leach in possession. The consideration for Stokes and McCullum is who will supply one of the best level of distinction as England search to deliver to an finish a seven-match winless run in New Zealand and in flip register a primary sequence win right here since 2008.
Source web site: www.espncricinfo.com