You may have missed it, but Test cricket is really fun at the moment.
Cast your mind back to the start of 2024 and England’s 4-1 defeat in India. In the fourth Test, England had a golden chance to level the series at 2-2, but they let it slip and lost. Then 3-1 soon became 4-1, but there was no shame. India beat everyone at home.
Nevertheless, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes set about making sweeping changes. James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes were out. Gus Atkinson, Jamie Smith and Shoiab Bashir were in.
England’s new guard set about thrashing the West Indies 3-0 and then beat Sri Lanka 2-1. The only match they lost all summer was the final game at The Oval, where they fell to a bizarre, borderline complacent, eight-wicket defeat.
England beating Sri Lanka 2-1 was the minimum. Because Sri Lanka aren’t very good. Except, Sri Lanka immediately beat New Zealand 2-0, which would suggest that actually, it’s New Zealand who aren’t very good. Which would make sense if the Kiwis hadn’t then gone on to immediately whitewash India – in India – 3-0. The place where no one wins, remember. It was India’s first series defeat on home soil since 2012 – and one of the biggest shocks in the history of the sport.
Test cricket. Everyone beats everyone round here.
All of this is to say that the three upcoming Tests between New Zealand and England promise to continue the theme of fun. No one knows who’s going to win. And if they say they do, they’re lying.
The two teams arrive off the back of contrasting results in their most recent outings but both from conditions that will be altogether foreign to what lies ahead in the next three weeks. New Zealand, as mentioned, beat India in India. England lost 2-1 away to Pakistan.
Both those series were played out on the spinning wickets of the sub-continent but in New Zealand, England will face a trial by seam. This series is the last of Tim Southee’s career: he will retire in Hamilton, unless the Black Caps qualify for the World Test Championship final, after 107 Tests. Southee has been one of New Zealand’s best-ever players but has waned of late, his numbers for 2024 reading 11 wickets at 61.72.
In his place, it is the likes of Will O’Rourke, the Kingston-upon-Thames-born 6ft 4in seamer, and Matt Henry who will be the ones to watch. Henry has taken 33 wickets this year at an average of 16.45; O’Rourke, 26 at 19.4.
For England, the majority of their bowling workload will lie at the feet of Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse, with Bashir and Ben Stokes to assist where necessary.
But it is with the bat that England have attracted the most attention. With stand-in wicketkeeper Jordan Cox ruled out of the series after breaking his finger and Ollie Pope standing in for one Test, the decision was made to give 21-year-old Jacob Bethell a debut at No 3, with Pope to slide down the order to No 6.
Bethell is a player of considerable talent and has already proved himself in white-ball cricket for England, but has no red-ball record to speak of. In 20 first-class matches for Warwickshire, he averages 25.44 with no hundreds. He has never batted at No 3 in his professional career.
It is the latest – and arguably most extreme – selection in a long list of left-field picks from Stokes and McCullum over the past two years. Which, to their credit, have almost all ended in considerable success.
“We’re not picking people just to wind people up,” Stokes said of the latest selection call. “We do know what we’re doing. We do know what we look for, and when you’re in a position to make decisions, you’ve got to do it by your standards.”
“Not really,” Stokes added, about whether he’d considered moving Joe Root, who will play his 150th Test for England at Christchurch, up to No 3 instead, to a position he has batted in 60 times for England across his career, averaging 43.57, compared to his overall average of 51.01. “We didn’t want to make it too messy. There was another way of thinking, if we bat first, Popey can bat three. But again, it was just too many moving parts.
“Bethell coming in gives an opportunity up the order, as opposed to just sort of filtering down and not being able to impose himself on the game.”
One key difference between New Zealand and England entering this series, however, is that the Kiwis are playing for today, while England are preparing for tomorrow.
Thanks to their win in India, the Black Caps are still in with a chance of qualifying for the World Test Championship final next year, with either two or three wins across the series potentially being enough to secure a spot and regain the title they won in 2021. England are all but out of contention already. England have never paid much attention to the WTC, a position that is increasingly hard to defend with five teams across the world now vying to compete in the final at Lord’s.
For all of England’s recent protestations that they’re putting Test cricket back on the map, they are the nation that pays the least attention to the competition that – while imperfect – provides context for the global game and is coming to an exciting conclusion. Instead, England have been outwardly stating their aim over this year has been to build towards the two series against India and Australia next year.
Nevertheless, this England team is nothing if not fun to watch along the way, whether they win or lose. Across 2024, they have done both. Their record reads played 14, won seven and lost seven. With three games to go, it is anyone’s guess whether they finish the year in the black or red.
