KARACHI, 23 Dec: New Zealand coach Gary Stead believes England’s attacking brand of cricket is redefining the test format of the game as the Black Caps prepare for their two-test series in Pakistan.
\n\u201cThere’s no doubt that they (England) are changing the face of test cricket a little bit,\u201d Stead said Friday after his team’s first training session at the National Stadium in the southern port city of Karachi. \u201cAll teams will be thinking a little bit around how England play and the successes that they’ve had in this past year.\u201d Led by captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, England swept Pakistan 3-0 this month with its \u201cbazball\u201d aggressive cricket in its first tour to the country after 17 years. It was England’s ninth win in the last 10 test matches since Stokes replaced Joe Root and McCullum was installed as coach.
\n\u201cThat’s exciting for them and I think it’s exciting for test cricket,\u201d Stead said. \u201cWhilst they did win 3-0 (against Pakistan) though, it was still a very, very tight series throughout and I expect our series here also to be the same.\u201d England’s fearless approach of scoring at a fast pace saw the team racking up a record 506-4 on the opening day of the first test. England wrapped up the series with an emphatic eight-wicket win at Karachi inside four days.
\n\u201cThere’s no doubt T20 cricket has sped up scoring overall,\u201d Stead said. \u201cNow most cricketers \u2026 have the ability to score at a much faster rate. For me, it’s still about finding your tempo, your style of play that suits your players the best.\u201d England’s batters, led by Harry Brook’s three centuries in three tests, played a key role in the team’s clean sweep in which Pakistan legspinners Abrar Ahmed and Zahid Mahmood shared 29 wickets between them.
\nStead expects spin to play a prominent role from Monday when the first test against New Zealand starts.
\n\u201cSpin will take a bigger part than what we’re probably used to normally,\u201d Stead said. New Zealand has given Ish Sodhi a test recall after four years and Stead hopes the legspinner will come good on slow turning wickets at Karachi and Multan. Leftarm spinner Ajaz Patel, who grabbed all 10 wickets in a test innings against India in 2021, and offspinner Michael Bracewell are the other slow bowling options.
\n\u201cWe picked our squad thinking that a legspinner will be important,\u201d Stead said. \u201cWe’ve obviously seen Abrar and Mahmood bowling well for Pakistan in the recent test series, so that’s great.\u201d New Zealand aborted its tour to Pakistan last year because of security concerns just hours before the toss in the first ODI at Rawalpindi. This will be New Zealand’s first tour to Pakistan since 2003 when it played a limited-overs series.
\nVeteran fast bowler Tim Southee will be leading in test matches for the first time after Kane Williamson stepped down from the test captaincy. Williamson returns to lead the side in the three ODIs at Karachi after the test series. \u201cIt’s a decision that Kane came to himself,\u201d Stead said. \u201cOver the time he’s realized that maybe just pulling back a little bit gives them the chance to really just focus on his batting. He’ll still be a great leader in that group. It’s probably a little bit different having a pace bowler as a captain, but Tim’s got a great cricketing brain.\u201d The Black Caps are without injured fast bowler Kyle Jamieson and Trent Boult, who is no longer a contracted player with New Zealand Cricket, and was not available for the Pakistan tour.
\n\u201cTrent Boult is playing in the Big Bash (League) at the moment,\u201d Stead said. \u201cThat’s the way the world is going a little bit. The options for players are numerous out there.” The second test will be played at Multan from Jan. 3-7. Karachi will host the three ODIs Jan. 10-14. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI, 23 Dec: New Zealand coach Gary Stead believes England’s attacking brand of cricket is redefining the test format of the game as the Black Caps prepare for their two-test series in Pakistan. \u201cThere’s no doubt that they (England) are changing the face of test cricket a little bit,\u201d Stead said Friday after his team’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}