'Did Brendon McCullum tell them to chase down 133 quickly?' - Twitter schools England after yet another collapse

The first day of the first Test match between England and New Zealand saw 17 wickets fall with the visitors gaining the upper hand at the end of play at the Lord’s Cricket Ground. Both teams are locking horns at the iconic venue again as they did last year in the first Test of the two-match series. The match was drawn. The Kiwis won the next Test match at Edgbaston comfortably, thereby winning the series.

Coming back to this match, while it was a forgettable batting performance from the visitors in their first innings, they made up for it exceptionally well with the ball as their seasoned bowlers asked some tough questions of the English batters on a pitch that seemed to have a lot of seam movement. Inconsistent batting which has been England’s main cause of concern in the last 15 months was yet again exposed and they went on to suffer a dramatic batting collapse and are still trailing by 16 runs in the first innings.

New Zealand bowlers stun England

Black Caps skipper Kane Williamson won a good toss on the morning of the opening day and elected to bat first. Even though it was a smart move, the visitors just could not apply themselves well at the crease and even before they could realize what was happening, they were reduced to 45/7 with the hosts making the most of the new ball. Courtesy of some lower middle-order resistance from Colin de Grandhomme (42*) and Tim Southee (26), the Kiwis could take their final score to 132 before being bundled out.

Overhauling New Zealand’s first-innings lead seemed to be a walk in the park for England at one point when openers Alex Lees (25) and Zak Crawley (43) successfully survived the new-ball spells and took on the Black Caps bowlers. The duo added 59 runs for the opening stand before the latter was dismissed just seven short of a well-deserved half-century.

It was just a matter of time after Crawley’s dismissal that the hosts completely lost the plot and a batting collapse followed. From a position of strength at 59/1, England were reduced to 100/7 before going to stumps by adding 16 more runs to their tally. In fact, England lost five wickets for just eight runs after being 92/2 at one stage. The terrific pace trio of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Kyle Jamieson worked in tandem for New Zealand with two wickets apiece to their names.

Meanwhile, Twitter trolled England as their issues with the bat continued even under the new Test head coach Brendon McCullum for whom this is the maiden assignment.

Here’s how the netizens reacted to England’s batting collapse: