England beat Black Caps in bowler's paradise at Lord's

You're listening to the TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Atkinson moves in, looking for his 5th.

Bowls in, middle stump is out of the ground. Atkinson on the honours board again at Lord's. 5 for 30. England win the Test match. They go 1-0 up here at Lord's. New Zealand all out for 138.

Michael Vaughan's alongside me and Phil Tuffner. It's always nice to be down. Actually, it's always rather nice on a Sunday, or it's a fourth day, to be down. Not for the host, but you get a good crowd down here. Here. All the spectators gathered around him down here in front of the members. Right, where should we start? I'll start with you, Tuffers. Yes. I was just reflecting on that, 166 overs the entire match. Yeah. The second shortest Lord's Test match ever. It's gonna be interesting to see what the players say about this. Just the way that the New Zealanders were kind of, well, not laughing, but sort of laughing when they were hit and the ball shooting on the ground and so on. I mean, it's been a strange game.

Yeah, well, I've just walked over there and had a look at it.

What do you think?

Look, a little bit grubby, isn't it?

It doesn't look like a cricket pitch.

No, it doesn't. And there's sort of cracks underneath the tufts, and so if one hits the tufts and it goes through, the other one hits a crack and does something. It's one of those pitches that as a batter you just— you never feel in. You always think that there's one around the corner with your name on it, and that's not really how the game should be played. You should be able to sort of try and get yourself in and then you know, sort of, you know, express yourself from there. No, it looked a little bit, a little bit of a crime scene, you know. It's a, it's a very odd looking pitch, Mark.

Yeah, Michael, when you see it, when you see a pitch, it, it, it should be even with its covering. I mean, you know, there could be a little tiny little bit of grass on it, there could be a lot of grass on it, but it's even usually, isn't it? That is, is just nothing like that.

No, I mean you know, you take your guard. And generally as a batter, you look down and you go, yeah, I've got a sniff here, you know, I'll have to play well. But you look down at this one, like, I think it's important— they know that it's a trouble here, they know that they need to do a lot of work to get this square right. But it's an ugly looking surface, been very difficult for the batters, very easy for the bowlers. But you know, you're looking at the fielding aspects of the Test match. New Zealand putting a poor performance performance, and that's probably where they really kind of let themselves down. I think, you know, the dismissals and the LBWs and the bowls, a lot of that was down to the pitch. The ball was seeming to hit the surface, and it wasn't just kind of keeping low, it was scooting low quickly. Yeah, some of those balls that were hitting the pad for the LBWs, you know, the bat was nowhere near because the ball seemed to gather pace off the surface. So yeah, it's been a shocker. Again, the MCC will know that. I'm sure they'll Maybe that'll instigate some movement in terms of change. You know, maybe this week needed to happen for a bit of the square to be dug up and replaced. But we're very intrigued to see what's pitch arrives for the Pakistan Test match.

Yeah.

In a few months' time.

So that's the question. Is it the whole thing that needs to be dug out or is it just that particular strip that's tired? Did they get something wrong with the preparation? All that very hot weather for those few days. And, you know, there are so many ingredients to throw in here.

Yeah, I mean, you go back to the winter, you know, the two test matches globally that I think people look out for are the MCC, MCG Boxing Day Test match and the Home of Cricket game. And, you know, it's been a really bad look for cricket in general when we've had a game at the MCG finishing in 2 days and a game 5 months later, 6 months later, finishing, what was it, 166 overs here at the Home of Cricket. So they all know it's been a poor week, it's been an embarrassing week for the Home of Cricket, but The most important aspect for the England side, they just had to win this week. They had to get back on track winning. They've done that. So they've won a Test match, they're 1-0 up in the series. They'll know, I don't think we can take a great deal from the poor performance in terms of this reset. I don't know what you can take from a pitch like that. But what you can take is they've won. They've won the key moments at the right times and they now move on to the next Test 1-0 up.

Yeah, you see, yeah, Tom Latham is within earshot. I just wonder if he might pop over in a second because there's a little bit of a holdup, I think, for the presentation. So let's just see how we're going to do this here. It's all a little bit— come on, Tom, let's deal with me for now. Thank you. Good to see you. What a strange game. It's looking at— that's the second shortest Test match ever played here. I think we know why. Have you got any thoughts on the surface? I don't want to get you into trouble.

Yeah, look, I think obviously it's a surface that we probably weren't expecting. I don't think anyone was expecting that. But I think if you look at it, there was two highly talented bowling attacks that exploited those conditions tremendously well. And I guess if you look at throughout the Test match, you know, we had our opportunities as well from a fielding point of view, and we weren't able to capitalize. And I spoke before the Test saying, you know, these games, there'll be small moments that you need to take, and unfortunately we didn't take a couple of those opportunities, which, you know, may be different in the end. But yeah, it's obviously not ideal, but it is what it is. We're both faced with the same conditions.

It just looks— it looks odd, don't you think?

Yeah, to be honest, looking at it, I didn't— again, didn't necessarily expect it to play like that. It looked okay. But yeah, I guess it's one of those things when you get in that situation, you've got to try— you've got to try mucking and scrap for every run or every wicket. And as I said, I think both bowling attacks were able to, I guess, exploit the conditions, you know, tremendously well, both England and us. So yeah, it's obviously not ideal, but yeah, we obviously switch our focus quickly to, you know, to the Oval Test, which is obviously an extra day off now.

Yeah, and you mentioned, I mean, 4 catches, and they're not necessarily hard ones either. They were big moments, weren't they?

Yeah, you're right. And you know, when you're playing a quality team like England, sometimes those moments, you know, can can escalate. And I guess a low-scoring affair from a runs point of view, then, you know, sometimes that can make the difference. So, you know, yes, we had our opportunities and just weren't able to take them.

One of those games for you in that umpire's calls as well. I mean, two of those in an over, you can sort of feel that that's another setback. I don't want to get into trouble, Tom, but, you know, you can't help but notice those moments that could have gone the other way.

Yeah, I guess throughout You know, Test matches, you know, sometimes they swing your way and sometimes they don't. And that's just the, I guess, the nature of the sport we play. And that's, you know, down to, you know, umpire's decisions, which is, you know, part of the game we play. So, you know, I think it's important that we don't kind of delve too much into this game. You know, we understand that we go to the Oval and conditions will be, you know, a lot better than what they have been here. So, you know, for us it's about trusting the work that we've put in, you know, trusting where our games are at and hopefully we can take a bit of confidence, you know, from what we've been building over the last couple of weeks. And as I said, try not to look into this one too much.

Thanks for talking to us, Tom. Appreciate it. See you at the Oval. There we go. That's a very phlegmatic view, isn't it, from New Zealand's captain? You know, just kind of put this game away and look forward to the next one. Thank you, Tuffers. Yeah, and just sort of move on, really, Tuffers. Who have we got? Oh, we've got— well, Ben Stokes is coming out. I don't think I'm interviewing him first. I think we might be getting Brendan McCullum. In a moment. So we'll see. But we've got Ollie Robinson, who's clearly the man of the match too, so that's great. A nice return for him. And let's just see what happens here. Again, it's all, it's all, it's all part of the fun of being down here. Never quite know what's going to, what's going to, what's going to happen. What I can say, Taff, is there'll be, there'll be rather more cheerful interviews, I hope, yes, uh, from the last ones we had with these two.

Well, absolutely. And as Mike said, you know, what it was all about here was just getting off to a winning start. It could have, uh, listen, it could have gone either way. When you play on a pitch like that and a surface like that, you've got to have a little bit of luck and ride your luck a little bit. But, uh, yeah, England will be delighted to get off to a winning start for the summer.

Well, here's England's coach, and a hopefully more cheerful interview than our last one. Baz, at the end of all that, I mean, how do you reflect on this game? For a start, I was just saying to Tom Latham there, that's the second shortest completed Test match ever on this ground. And I'll say again, I know you're bound by rules and regulations, I don't want to get you into trouble, but What did you make of that surface?

Oh, look, it was challenging. I'm not sure you'd want to play on it every week, but I sort of take a slightly different view of it. I think the beauty of Test cricket is that you have contrasting conditions, contrasting challenges, and you've got to find ways to be able to adapt and to be able to ultimately be successful on them. And I think the good thing from our point of view is I felt like when you, when you're going to be involved in a low-scoring shootout, you need to make sure your execution is bang on, because if you let the game drift for a period of time that's going to be enough for you to end up on the wrong side. But I thought our execution with the ball was outstanding. I thought our plans were great. We were able to bring into play the very lengths that we needed to hit on that surface. And with the bat, I thought we were brave at times and we were calculated at other times. And I guess for me, bravery can often be slightly misunderstood. Bravery is not always just running down the wicket and trying to bang it into the stands. Bravery is about being able to manipulate your stance at the crease, to be able to give the bowler something different, to be able to find way to get off one, to get off strike and manufacture ones. And I thought, albeit batting conditions really difficult, I thought our boys did a good job of that.

Yeah, absolutely. Were you surprising, or were you surprised that New Zealand didn't perhaps come at you a bit today and, and I don't know, try and play in England's manner and try and knock the bowlers off their length a bit?

Uh, not really their style, to be honest. I think they're really authentic with how they go about their, their game. They're a team that does things really well for a long period of time, and they've had a lot of success doing that over the last decade or so. So not, not— I didn't really expect them to do much different. I think from their point of view, it felt as if they were trying to get it into a pressure situation, get as close to target as they could, and hope that we felt pressure. And thankfully, we were able to get enough wickets early on to negate that.

Yeah, Ollie Robinson then. I mean, back in the side, we know the story, but, and he has had some nice conditions, but it was good to see him bowling with that familiar rhythm again.

Yeah, he was brilliant. Look, I mean, he was so nervous, right? He mentioned before he bowled in that first innings that he was more nervous than he'd been on, than he was he was on his debut and for us, I guess we were just trying to zero him back in on the plans and what the focus was. And for him, it was just trying to hit a natural length, right? His natural length was gonna be successful on the surface and you didn't need genuine airspeed on this pitch. You needed relentlessness of your accuracy and being able to get the ball to seam. And, you know, from his height and what with his skills, he was always gonna be a handful. And, you know, absolutely delighted for him to come back in and to do what he did.

It takes tough character to be able to do that.

After being out of the side for a while. So really pleased for him.

Yeah.

And Emilio Gay, well, I heard his interview the other day. I mean, what a delight. Someone who's just, I don't know, seems to be thrilled to be playing, is reveling in the whole thing. And a lovely innings from him too.

He hasn't sat through too many bad interviews. I mean, he's got genuine enthusiasm and passion for the game, as do all the other lads as well. And I was really impressed by Emilio. The thing about him is, it's just you do you, mate. You're a run scorer. You've got a different method different way of doing things. And in a low-scoring game, the contribution that he made was substantial. So look, he's loved the week, absolutely loved the week. He's quite an emotional guy, and to be able to debut at Lord's and to have some success and playing a team that's won a Test match, he'll remember for the rest of his life. And we've seen some signs that he can certainly operate at this level, and we look forward to seeing him develop.

Just last one, looking ahead, Baz, have you thought about the Oval at all? I mean, you know, bowling-wise, is Joffre Archer going to be back? Is he going to be up for consideration?

Yeah, we'll let this one land, I think, and then we'll start. You know, we've got quite a decent break between now and joining up for the next one, so we'll let this one land, make sure we enjoy it. Cricket's a tough game, right? You sometimes, you're having to wear a few blows on ups and downs. Yeah, you have ups and downs. For this one, we'll just, we'll let it land and let the boys enjoy this, and then we'll start plotting and planning our way forward.

Hope you enjoy it too. Thanks, Storges. There we go. Cheers. There we are. Nice to see the England coach smiling. During an interview, it's all— it's been pretty tough the last few months, and that's more like it.

Yeah, and I love it when I hear the coach say enjoy it. You know, the players had a tough winter, it's not been easy, and when you win a Test match, even it's a bit of a lottery of a Test match this week because of the surface, you have to make sure you enjoy it, particularly when you've got quite a few days till the next one. They'll enjoy tonight and then they'll regroup and they'll know that at the Oval it'll be a different kind of wicket, it'll be a different week, maybe more of a challenge. And, you know, with New Zealand, they'll come back. You know, they're a very professional unit, very professional side. And, you know, New Zealand, I'm pretty sure, will put in a better display in a week and a half's time. And England will just have to up the game once again, which is a good sign. The most important aspect for Baz McCullum, for Ben Stokes, and all the team was to just win this week. Now they had to get that victory at 140 all out, I guess. It was starting to get a bit messy again because everything was about the winter. So it's just important that they got the win.

The TMS Podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Right, here we go. Well, I saw you at the start of the game, wish you good luck. I didn't think I'd be interviewing at the end as man of the match. What a return.

Yeah, pretty special week. Hard to put into words how amazing that first over was. The crowd were just epic and I couldn't really feel my body, to be honest, when I was bowling. I was just trying to land the ball in a place running, and luckily it went well for me. But yeah, such an incredible week, first one of the summer. Hopefully we can continue that going forward.

Even that first over, I mean, you can't, you can't possibly even dream up a start like that.

No, I've never done it before in my career, and I'm not sure if I will again either. It was just, just one of those, one of those sessions, I guess, where everything was in our favor as the bowling group. We came out with 25 overs to go, um, Obviously a brand new ball. We had the advantage of seeing them bowl as well, which I think was quite big because we saw that wobble seam was working better than swing. We saw that you had to bowl at the stumps and you couldn't— it wasn't a channel sort of wicket. So we had an advantage there and I think we stuck to that through the whole game and that stood us in good stead. And obviously a few great knocks from Brookie and Emilio Gay on debut got us ahead in the game because I think 180-200 was probably a par on that pitch.

Brendan said that you said to him that you're more nervous even than your debut coming back.

Yeah, it's been a while out from playing for England, and the day before I said to a couple of the guys that most nervous I've been before a Test match. And even on the morning of, I was so anxious just coming into the ground. It is exciting, but nerves I've not had before, and I wasn't sure how to handle. But once we— the toss went up and we were batting, they calmed a little bit. And then when we got to bowling again, the heart rate was through the roof, and I'm just trying to take deep breaths, control emotions and stick to what I know I can do. And luckily it was my week. I had a few decisions go my way as well, a few umpire's calls, which always help. Exactly, yeah. But no, it's just great to be back.

Did you feel you had something to prove? I mean, it was 2 years, quite a lot said, fitness, all those things, you know it all. Yeah. Did you feel that you really had something therefore that you had to prove? That put a bit of extra pressure on you?

I mean, there's always added pressure coming back into playing for England, and you've got guys saying that you're a world-class bowler obviously before the Test match, and you you do have a level of expectation, I suppose, coming in that you have to perform to that to keep your spot, I suppose. But I know what I think. I'm 32 now. I know what I'm good at. I've done it for a long time.

Has captaincy helped?

Captaincy has definitely helped. Looking after other guys, looking after the youngsters at Sussex. And even when I wasn't bowling here in this game, I felt like I was more involved in the game and trying to look after the bowlers and help Stokesy. I think that's just where I've grown as a person and as a cricketer. And I think that's definitely helped me bowling as well. Being present and being in the game as much as possible. Um, and yeah, it's— I know it's only the start, it's the first— it's only one game. Um, and I really want to make sure that my career with England is a lot longer than the last time. I know there's a lot of hard work to do, but I'm ready to do it.

Enjoy it. Nice to see you, Ollie. Well done. Congratulations. Uh, Ollie Robinson, the man of the match, has got a very nice magnum of champagne there. He's got a big medal around his neck. Um, and well, well deserved. Uh, fabulous. And again, a very honest A honest conversation there with him.

Yeah, I mean, you just get the feeling, don't you, that he's sort of not grown up a bit, but you know what I mean? That couple of years out, you know, you sort of evaluate things in your life, don't you? And your cricket career, sometimes you can want it too much, can't you? And it can get a bit carried away with things. You might say the odd wrong thing as well and everything like that. It just seems like he's like, right, well, I'm back, I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to go out and bowl and run around and have a lovely time without putting too much pressure on myself. So listen, What a wonderful, wonderful pitch to make your comeback on, you know. Going to be slightly different at the Oval, that's for sure. But, um, yeah, enjoy it, love it, you know.

Man of the match.

What, what an occasion, uh, Lord's Test match, you know. Wonderful. What I'm really happy for him.

Yeah, a level of honesty there, Michael. I thought on, on all sorts of fronts, even down to the, you know, umpire's calls going my way, but actually analyzing his game very— and himself. Very honestly.

Yeah, I mean, I think he's obviously had a good week on the field, but I've actually loved the way that he's spoken all week. He's given a couple of just normal interviews. That's what you want from a player. And I do think you're asking a really good question about the captaincy. You know, I think sometimes when you're just a player, you don't really appreciate how much work some captains have to do, but you also appreciate what's going through other people's minds as well because you have to look after— he said he looked after a few of the younger players at Sussex, and he's probably thought, oh yeah, that's probably what I need to do in terms of myself, look after myself a little bit more. And that's what I saw this week. Look, it's going to get challenged in the next few months. It's not going to be like this every week. It's not going to be that the ball's just nipping off a length. And we know, and I've always known with Ollie Robinson, if there's a pitch with a bit of movement in it, he'll find it. Um, you know, I think in time, when we get a week where, you know, the, the field, and you're out there for a period of time, and you come back for your second spell, your third spell, that's when we'll see the fitness element of Ollie Robinson. There's There's never been a doubt in terms of his skill. No, you know, his Test record is exceptional, his average is exceptional. Now England have got to work, and he's got to work himself to make sure that in a year's time when the Ashes are around and in South Africa in the winter, he wants to be opening the bowling, he wants to be the tone setter for England. We lacked it in the winter, we really lacked that first couple of overs apart from Perth, you know, in the first innings. Pretty much after that Australia was off to a flying start with Ollie Robinson. You would think you'd at least get control with the new ball, and that's going to be crucial for England.

Yeah, yeah. Ben Stokes is giving an interview at the moment on the telly, and we'll be talking to him, uh, in a few moments' time. Um, a lot of talk about his batting again today in the press, isn't there? I don't know if you've caught up with the newspapers yet this morning, Mike, but you know, talking about him, you know, just, just not looking like his old self really.

No, I mean, he seems to have a habit of—

I'm not gonna ask him that, by the way.

No, no, no, good luck. Make that your last question if I was you. Um, he seems to have a habit of looking down at the pitch a lot, you know. He's done it against Mitchell Starc a lot in the winter. Yes, the ball's moving. I thought in the second innings he was bowled by a ball that did just a little bit, and I reckon if Ben's really honest and if he stares at the ball really closely, I think he gets a little bit of bat on that, you know. When he's playing well, he should be able to nullify that that delivery. Clearly he'll be trying very, very hard. I just wonder sometimes with Ben whether he's thinking too much technique rather than being a little bit more aggressive and freeing himself up to hit the ball and try and, you know, just look at the scoreboard and get runs. Don't worry about survival, you know. He looks to me like he's always working technically on his game, and, you know, he's such a wonderful player, and he's just that one innings away. I mean, he got 100 against India last year at Old Trafford. In the winter, he had a couple of knocks which were very kind of almost turgid the way that he batted in Australia at times. He's better than that, and I think Ben at his best is a more aggressive player, and I think that'd be one way of just staring at the ball a little bit closely to hit it, you know, try and score runs. Might just trigger him into getting in better positions and surviving against the ball that just does a little bit more.

It's often said down in Phil and my part of the batting order that if you're put down at number 11, you bat like a number 11. Is there any danger that going down to number 7 kind of changes the way that he, he might view his own batting, for a start?

Yeah, well, I hope not, but I guess, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, no, I don't get that. Um, yeah, I mean, I've never batted down there, so honestly, it's quite fun.

Is it tough? Is it all right?

I think he just needs to get a little bit more sort of fun back in his batting. You're right, Mike, you know, he's sort of— he's walking out there with bat in hand, looking like he's got a little bit of the world on his shoulders a little bit, you know. The Ben Stokes that we love to watch is free, isn't he? They're sort of walking and looking to hit things, you know, over mid-off and sort of hooks and pulls and all this kind of stuff. Just get a little bit more fun in it. I mean, perhaps that's a little bit of a pressure of the captaincy that, uh, you know, Australia and things like that. But, uh, you know, you've got to play this game. I know it's difficult sometimes, but you've got to try and play this game with a smile on your because it will help your performance.

Yeah, I just wonder whether— I mean, we've obviously criticized at times the Bazball method, but I think if there was one player that I'd be saying to play that way, it'd be the captain.

Yeah, Mike just asked him a question about his batting. He got a short one. I think I might— I'm just listening to it. Uh, right, here's the captain, uh, with a smile on his face. It was good to see. Well, you came and you did it then. A good win.

Yeah, very good start to the summer. Um, that was obviously on the back of a long time in between Test matches for us. There was a lot of, you know, there would have been a few nerves, few anxious feelings and emotions going into that. But yeah, when you get over that line and day one starts, you sort of forget about all that. And again, we didn't know what we were going to be presented with, and I thought we were very quick to identify what the conditions were going to be like and That's what you got to do. You got to play what's in front of you. You got to identify the conditions as a team and understand what you think is the best way for you to go out there and win. And yeah, we did that better than New Zealand this week.

Yes, you did. And although it being difficult, is it important that you still look— you have a positive mindset to playing on a difficult pitch rather than thinking, oh, this is horrible, this is terrible, and, you know, just, you know, not— you don't mean, you know, have a positive way of playing on it?

Yeah, well, it's Test cricket. And it's tough. That's why it's called Test cricket. And you know, you don't rock up and expect everything to be in your favor as a batter, everything to be in your favor as a bowler. And so, you know, that's, that's the beauty of it. You never know what you're going to get. So you've got to act on your feet quickly. You've got to understand what you need to do as a bowling group, as a batting group, to try and give yourself the best chance at winning a Test match. And again, you know, as we did that really well as a as a team, and we did that very quickly as well. Obviously the game was in pretty fast forward throughout the whole time that it was played out there. And yeah, I was real happy with the way that we just stuck to our plans. We didn't differ from it. And I think that considering everything that was coming into this game, I love the levelness of emotions once we got out to the field and once the game started, even at the end of day's play when it had gone good or when we went through a spell like when we lost, you know, 4 wickets for no runs. Just the calmness that was, that was still in the dressing room there because we knew that we were still in a very strong position, but we knew that we still had a lot of hard work to do to get us even further ahead of the game than we already were. So yeah, overall from an on-field perspective and an off-field perspective, it's been a great week for the team starting off.

Yeah, indeed. I'm not going to get into trouble here, but that's the second shortest completed Test match ever at Lord's. 160 overs or less. Have you got anything to say about the surface? It's been talked about a lot.

Yeah, look, I think there's two sides to it. For me, it's again Test cricket. It's tough. It presents its challenges. And when you get something like that, again, you need to go away as a team and go, right, okay, this is what it is. We've got to do this. This is what's in front of us. How are we going to take this on to give ourselves the best chance of winning? And we did that. I get asked a lot I get asked a lot about what do we need to do to keep it growing? What do we need to do to keep it, you know, such a strong format in the future? The only thing that I would say that from someone who loves the format and someone who knows and understands that we need people coming and watching Test cricket still. It's played over 5 days. That wicket there, if you get tickets on day 1 to that, you would have absolutely had a great time. It was wickets going everywhere. There was, you know, balls flying off everywhere because that's how we sort of, the batsmen sort of decided the best way to score runs. And that's the other side of it, you know, like it's rain. We got to day 4, but if there wasn't any rain, the game's going to end early. Like, is that what we want to be doing? You know, sort of want to find somewhere in the middle. You know, we play here a lot and we've had games play like this. You've had games go to day 5 where it's been tough, slow and enthralling, but there's been a result. Finding somewhere in the middle, maybe. I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I don't—

you don't want a road either?

No, you don't want that again. It's so tough to say, you know, like, and it's not like people You know, they're trying their hardest to produce good wickets and, you know, to produce something that's going to be entertaining for everyone to come and watch and make it go long. But that's where I come from it, like, but that doesn't take anything away from the way that we had to operate this week. We've come here, we played a game and a style of and a brand of cricket that allowed us to be successful in these conditions. We might turn up next week and it'd be completely different and then we have to do something there. But again, for someone who loves Test cricket, my one thing about that is to just say it is Is that something that will benefit Test cricket going forward? I don't think so, but no one's doing it on purpose. It's a very tough job to be a groundsman, I will give them that. But yeah, it shouldn't take away from the fact that we've won a Test match.

And it doesn't. Same for both sides. Last word, Ollie Robinson. He came here with a lot to prove and what a dream for him.

Yeah, unbelievable. A long time out of the game and fully, you know, he's deserved his recall. I thought it was interesting because he sort of looked Although Ollie and Gus have been around for a lot, we do have a bit of quite a lot of inexperience in terms of, you know, Test match exposure. So it was almost like I had two leaders this weekend in Ollie Robb and Gus Atkinson. But Gus is still at the start of his career. Ollie Robb's been out for 2 years and coming back. So it was, it was, it was, yeah, it was bizarre. But yeah, Ollie's great. You know, that would have been a tough week for him, emotion, everything like that. And he was emotional there when he took the selected as man of the match award. But what we've seen on day one with the ball is exactly what we know Ollie can do. And for him, it's great to hear him know that it's just a start. He's got a lot more hard work to do. And obviously, I think for English cricket, the more games that he plays for us, the better, because he's a fantastic bowler.

Nice one, Ben. Nice to see you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Danny. We'll see you at the Oval. Cheers, Ben. Right, there we go. Lots, lots Interesting his comments about the pitch, you know.

Chatty, weren't they?

Yes, nice. Well, definitely, it just shows what a win can do, doesn't it? But, um, interesting comments about the pitch. I thought, um, you know, he does love Test cricket and he wants Test cricket to thrive, you know. He just said, you know, that's probably not the way that it's going to happen.

Well, it's certainly not an argument for 5-day Test match cricket when you've got a pitch that obviously has ended in 166 overs. So yeah, we haven't had one over from spin. No, there wasn't an over from spin at the MCG either. No, and the Boxing Day Test, there's only a few overs of spin in Perth. So inside the last 6 England Test matches, we've had 50% of the test that has involved no spin. That's not good for the game, it's not good for the product. And you know, he was right in saying England found a way, and that's That's what this team has got to get better at. On a given week, you're going to have to change your style, you're going to have to change your approach. This week was an approach which needed to be a bit more aggressive because the pitch determined that. I actually thought on day 1 they played too conventionally. I thought earlier that they could have gone a bit more Bazball-like, but they were never going to do that in the first half.

They'd be shouting, "We can't win!

We can't please everybody!" But for this team to be a real high-quality side, that's what they're going to have to assess and do. You know, the Oval in a week and a half's time might be a week where you just have to bat a long period of time, and that's, you know, what they've got to get better at understanding as a group is to read the situation. This week they read it nicely.

Yeah, they did, they did, and did the same for both sides after all. Right, we're going to start wandering back. Andy Zaltzman, what stats have you got? I've been putting around the one about the second shortest Test match ever here at Lord's. Thanks for that one, that was one of yours. Uh, what, what else have you dug out with this rather strange game?

Well, yes, not only the second shortest at Lord's, the eighth shortest ever in England, the 25th shortest anywhere in the world. And England have been involved in three of that top 25 within their last six Tests. The Perth and Melbourne, uh, Test in the Ashes, I think, were both top 10. And this, uh, this also one of the shortest ever played. To put that in context, there were no Test matches below 1,000 balls. This was 996. There were no Tests below 1,000 balls anywhere in the world between 1946 and 1995. So that shows you a lot about the trends in modern, uh, modern Test cricket. But this was very different to those games in Australia where we saw a lot of wickets falling to, uh, to attacking shots. In this Test, 26 wickets fell to defensive shots, um, or no shots, and that's the most in the Cricviz database. This data goes back over 20 years. So any Test anywhere in the world, over 800 matches, there's never been more wickets fall to batters trying, trying to defend. So this wasn't, you know, one of the games we saw with the sort of wickets falling and sort of flying bats and high-risk shots. And that tells you a lot about how difficult this pitch was. This was players getting out trying, trying to defend. New Zealand faced just 70.2 overs. That's the fewest balls they've ever faced in a Test in which they've been bowled out in both innings. And it's the fourth fewest balls England have taken out out, uh, taken to bowl their opponents out since 1904. So very much a bowler's game. A wicket every 25 balls, the 7th lowest such figure ever in a Test match anywhere, and the 3rd lowest in a Test in England. Those bowls and LBWs, the final count was 24, which is the most ever in a Test in England. And again, that says a lot about the pitch, that the uncertain footwork when The players couldn't trust either the lateral bounce or the vertical bounce. Um, 13 bold, 11 lbw. New Zealand, the first team in England to have 14 players dismissed bold and lbw in a single Test in England since 1952. So it's, yeah, it's been a brutally tough game for, uh, for the, uh, for the batting teams. No spin, as you mentioned, the first time there's been no spin in a Test in England. 1988, and only the third time ever. Um, but there were four five-wicket hauls from different bowlers, and it's only the third Test in England that has had a five-wicket haul from a different bowler in each of the four innings of the Test. So definitely a Test match for the bowlers rather than the batters.

Thank you, Andy, uh, very much indeed. So we'll leave it. You can watch the highlights, uh, BBC Two, BBC iPlayer, from 7 o'clock tonight. Uh, go to BBC Sounds for our TMS podcast. There's lots to enjoy there, including that view from the boundary yesterday with Richard Moore, the head of, the head of MI6, the former head of MI6 anyway. Our coverage of the opening match of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup starts at 6 o'clock on Friday. It's England against Sri Lanka, and then the second test in this series begins a week on Wednesday, of course.

So much sport today and all the goals as they go in up and down the league. This is Five Live Sports.

It's all eyes to the lights and foot to the floor. De Gaulle! It's knocked his stump out.

Everyone standing around the 18th green.

That is sensational!

He serves to the centre and that will do it!

Oh, a right hand and the former champion is down! It's extraordinary stuff. They've put on a show for us tonight.

He gets on his knees and kisses the turf. Five Live Sports.

The home of the world's greatest sporting events.

This is the full-time whistle.

Listen on BBC Sounds.