After all that happened during the Ashes, it was just so important England won this first Test against New Zealand – and that they won it emphatically.<\/p>\n
It was a very difficult pitch at Lord’s but it is the same for both sides, and they came out on top.<\/p>\n
Speaking to both head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, I think they felt enormous relief. It has been a difficult time for all of them after the Ashes. It is a long time sitting and thinking and brooding.<\/p>\n
So to come and win the first game and to do it in a good style, that was the most important thing for them.<\/p>\n
What did it tell us? Not a huge amount. We know Ollie Robinson is a really, really fine bowler. We’ve always known that.<\/p>\n
But there is a lot on his shoulders, a lot of talk about him and his fitness, attitude and all those things.<\/p>\n
He has had a lot thrown at him over the past two years, so there is a lot of pressure on him. McCullum said that he had mentioned he was more nervous than on his debut.<\/p>\n
To come and take three wickets in your first over back, it’s a dream come true. He will have more challenging days but that is how he bowls and it is a sort of consistency that England missed in the Ashes from their opening attack.<\/p>\n
I like this seam bowling attack as a whole. It has got more control. <\/p>\n
Robinson and Gus Atkinson both took five-wicket hauls during the match and are very skilled operators.<\/p>\n
Josh Tongue is England’s premier bowler at the moment, though. I’ve got no doubts about that.<\/p>\n
His development is remarkable. Where he releases the ball from is made for Lord’s with the slope. It is a very high action and he can just get the occasional one to hold up at the Pavilion End, as he did to great effect.<\/p>\n
He is moving on from being more than just promising. He is becoming dependable now and England need to keep him fit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After all that happened during the Ashes, it was just so important England won this first Test against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-626310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}