New Zealand in England 2008

Bowlers shine for England

Mathew Varghese

June 9, 2008

	Ryan Sidebottom was once again a thorn in New Zealand's side © Getty Images

A 2-0 scoreline for a three-Test series might suggest one side dominating the other, but barring the final Test at Trent Bridge, where New Zealand lost by an-innings-and-nine runs - they did manage to put up a keen fight against England.

England averaged nearly nine runs more per wicket than their opponents for the series, 34.67 to 25.85, but if you exclude the drubbing in Nottingham, England manage 33.95 in comparison to New Zealand's 30.61.

The star at Trent Bridge was James Anderson, who took career-best match figures of 9 for 98 - including 7 for 43 in New Zealand's first innings - and scored a career-best 28. He finished as the leading wicket-taker in the series with 19 scalps, also his personal best for a series. Anderson and new-ball partner Ryan Sidebottom took 36 wickets between them. For New Zealand, Daniel Vettori, their captain, led the wicket tally with 12 dismissals, one of his better series of late.

Sidebottom has been the second-highest wicket-taker in Tests since his return last year. New Zealand's batsmen struggled against the trio of Anderson, Sidebottom and Stuart Broad, while their fast bowlers struggled to make the same impact. While Iain O'Brien did commendably, Chris Martin and Jacob Oram found it difficult to take wickets, with the former averaging nearly 60.

Batsmen on both sides failed to dominate, with the highest total in the series being 381. Andrew Strauss, who came back to the England fold during the New Zealand tour, ended as the leading run-scorer, but he was the only England batsman to score more than 200 runs.

New Zealand struggled right at the top, with newcomer Aaron Redmond failing to make an impression, while James Marshall was a failure at No. 3, and the visitors soon found themselves missing the reassuring presence of Stephen Fleming. In the Test series in New Zealand, Fleming and Jamie How combined well to make the second-wicket partnership average nearly 70, but in England with no Fleming, that figure dropped to 12.16. New Zealand's struggles are best reflected by the fact that they averaged over 50 only for the fifth wicket, while Vettori's poor run - 61 in six innings, arguably his worst return in recent years - compounded the problem.

In contrast, England's first two wickets averaged over 50, while a paltry 11.50 for the fourth wicket came about due to the wretched run of Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood. Significant late-order contributions from Broad boost the tally for the lower order.

Player v player stats
Ross Taylor managed better than most against Anderson and Sidebottom, scoring 167 runs against them at a healthy clip, and getting dismissed only once. Redmond was all at sea against Anderson, while Sidebottom did well against the left-handers Oram and Vettori. Monty Panesar also did his job as well, removing the dangerous Brendon McCullum three times and Taylor twice. Kevin Pietersen also found the going tough against left-arm spin, while Vettori dismissed his spin counterpart Panesar twice for just one run.

Mathew Varghese is an editorial assistant at Cricinfo

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