The first day of the Brendon McCullum era began with a bang but ended with a whimper following an all too familiar England batting collapse against the Black Caps at Lord’s.
That was the view of the English media as they picked the bones over another fragile batting effort from their struggling test side, captained by Christchurch-born Ben Stokes for the first time.
Having skittled New Zealand for just 132 on day one of the first test – taking five wickets for eight runs – McCullum’s new-look England then slumped to 116-7 at stumps, still trailing the world champions by 16 runs.
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‘New regime, same old problems’, screamed the headline in the Daily Mail, whose chief cricket writer Paul Newman lamented how the hosts had “all but squandered the huge advantage given them by a mightily impressive debutant” Matt Potts, who took 4-13, on a “quite bonkers day” in London.
“Welcome to English test cricket, Brendon McCullum, and welcome to the mad world of the England captaincy, Ben Stokes, on a day of triumph and disaster in equal measure,” Newman wrote.
He felt Potts and returning veteran James Anderson (4-66) had “bowled England to a position of such strength it should have guaranteed a win” to get the new regime off to a “perfect start”.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
England captain Ben Stokes heads for the pavilion after being caught off the bowling of Tim Southee.
But, Newman added, “we should have known better” as “nothing beats test cricket’s propensity for twists and turns and nothing beats England’s fragility and capacity for collapse.
“Here they rapidly went from one of Kipling’s twin imposters to the other in near record time.”
In The Guardian, Ali Martin savoured an opening day “featuring more action than a Hollywood blockbuster” and said it shouldn’t have come as a surprise given the attack-minded McCullum was now at the helm.
“When Rob Key decided Brendon McCullum was the ideal head coach to pair with Stokes, the director of men’s cricket told folks to “buckle up and get ready for the ride”. An opening day of 17 wickets and 248 runs played out to the burbling hum of Lord’s, initially dominated by the hosts but with New Zealand fighting back in the final session, certainly met that billing,” he wrote.
Martin felt Kane Williamson had made the right call to bat first after winning the toss but said “things went south for the visiting skipper thereafter” before a spirited fightback with the ball put England in trouble.
“Though [Trent] Boult and [Tim] Southee squandered the new ball, the introduction of the giant [Kyle] Jamieson changed the complexion of events,” opined Martin.
Nick Hoult was more strident in his criticism in The Telegraph, saying “England’s batting was almost as bad as anything seen in Australia”, against an “undercooked” New Zealand attack “clearly struggling for rhythm”.
“They were gifted wickets, batsmen following too closely the mantra of playing positively espoused by Stokes and Brendon McCullum,” Hoult wrote.
Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
Trent Boult celebrates removing Matthew Potts for a duck as the Black Caps fought back with the ball.
BBC Sport’s Stephan Shemilt said England’s Kiwi-flavoured new dawn had got off to a “chaotic start” after a “blur of inexplicable strokes” saw them squander strong positions at 59-0 and 92-2 to finish a “barely believable” day of cricket on the backfoot.
“For as much as England looked reinvigorated with the ball and in the field, their batting was depressingly feeble, the rash shots all too familiar,” Shemilt said.
“The late clatter of wickets was enough to drag New Zealand back into a contest that they could already have been out of.”
Shemilt suggested the Black Caps “looked flattened, offering little threat” and had been “given a way back into the match” by some dreadful batting as England “lost the plot”.
“England were in control, only for the evening collapse to turn the match on its head.”
Under the headline ‘New captain, new coach but same old England’, The Sun‘s Martin Lipton bemoaned the hosts “same inability to cope with even the first vestige of pressure”.
“A day that had started so well for Stokes and Brendon McCullum ended with a spineless hour to send the first test back into the balance,” Lipton wrote.
While praising Stokes’ positive leadership, Lipton said he and McCullum had a huge job on their hands dragging this middling English side out of the test doldrums and would need time to get them challenging the best.
“McCullum and Stokes can change the mentality but cricket still requires technique and obduracy,” Lipton said.
“That comes over months, not days. And suggests there may be plenty more changes required to get there.”
