England captain Ben Stokes had no doubts about asking New Zealand to observe on regardless of the house facet’s courageous fightback in Wellington, with assistant coach Paul Collingwood insisting the attacking possibility is at all times first selection.
Stokes despatched the house facet again into bat with a 226-run deficit halfway by way of the third morning, hoping to wrap up a series-clinching win earlier than the day was out.
That was totally consistent with the tenor of his reign, throughout which he has pulled each lever accessible to press for constructive outcomes, together with his daring declaration earlier on this match.
So far that mindset has served England effectively, with 10 wins from 11 Tests below his management, however New Zealand did their greatest to derail his plans. At stumps they had been simply 24 behind on 202 for 3, with a 149-run stand between openers Tom Latham and Devon Conway placing arduous yards into the bowlers’ legs.
More arduous work lies forward to press house their benefit, however Collingwood mentioned: “It was very clear this morning. Stokesy spoke to the guys and said ‘if we get the chance to follow-on we’re going to enforce it’.
“He was very clear on that and that’s the approach of Stokesy and Baz (McCullum, head coach). They want the aggressive option and hopefully to win the game today. It didn’t turn out that way but we’re still in a really good position.
“The mantra of this team is always to take the aggressive approach and there was no doubt in Stokesy’s mind that if we got the opportunity that was the way he was going to go. We’ve always said we’re not scared of losing but we want to get ourselves in a position of winning games and we felt we could have won, or got close to winning, today.”
Despite England getting by way of 94.2 overs of laborious, draining work over the course of the day, all-rounder Stokes chipped in simply two of them. He has been managing a long-standing knee drawback for a while and more and more has to parcel out his interventions with the ball.
Here, he managed two rough-and-ready overs after tea, was warned and no-balled for bowling too many bouncers and ended the spell after Jack Leach acquired the much-needed breakthrough on the different finish.
“Look, as we all know he’s got a knee niggle, thankfully he’s the captain out there and makes the decision when he bowls or doesn’t bowl,” defined Collingwood.
“Stokesy was happy to go to other options and he puts a hell of a lot of trust in his team and the other bowlers as well. It’s been a good day. Yes, he dropped it a little bit short on a couple of occasions so that’s his one warning there. He will have to be careful if he goes to that plan again.”
England have gained all of their final 4 video games towards the Black Caps up to now 12 months, imposing their model on the reigning Test world champions, however had been ready for the form of belated resistance they confirmed at Basin Reserve.
“When you come up against quality opposition you expect them to fight hard and this was one of those days,” Collingwood mentioned.
“You’re going to get days when it’s tough work and that’s Test cricket. It’s enthralling and has set up what could be a great Test match.”