After a collapse early in the morning of the final day that saw England lose four wickets for just 27 runs, Joe Root and Ben Stokes added a 120-run stand that saw them move into a position of strength. The duo had seen off 213 balls over their partnership and a plethora of ploys from New Zealand that had yielded no result.
When Neil Wagner, who had been hit at four runs per over in his first 6 overs, was finally brought back into the attack in the 57th over of the innings, New Zealand had switched to their plan B. The short-pitched ploy from Wagner had not worked for him so far in the series, he had gone at 6.19 RPO over and averaged over 44 in the previous three innings of the series.
But on a fifth-day track that was slowing down, Wagner’s angle and effort-balls proved to be tough to counter for England. He had the dogged Ben Stokes mistiming a pull off just his second short ball to him to break the game open first. And it tilted firmly in New Zealand’s favour when he had Root too miscuing a pull in the next over. It resulted in Wagner pounding away from one end with mixed results for over eight overs in an unbroken spell ending when he finally had James Anderson strangled down the legside, with another short-of-length delivery. He ended up with 4-62 and also gave New Zealand a plan to work with as Tim Southee and Matt Henry too struck crucial blows with the short balls to fashion a historic, and rare win by one run.
The move also earned praise from the opposition with Stokes being generous in defeat. “It was a case of assessing the situations, we always knew that at some point in that partnership (between himself and Root), Tim [Southee] was gonna have to roll the dice with something. Wags [Wagner] came on and blew the game open for them. For myself and Joe there, that was our opportunity to pounce. Sometimes things don’t happen the way you want them to.
“With those bouncer plans, we had to make a decision and obviously it didn’t come off for us. It was an opportunity for us to score runs there. As soon as Waggie [Wagner] came on to do those bouncers, I saw it as an opportunity to maybe take 20 runs off the over and then bring the game even more in our favour. Credit to Waggie and Tim for coming up with that idea,” said the England captain.
After his victorious spell of 8.2-0-38-3, Wagner acknowledged that it took a lot out of his body. “Pretty jaded, this is a special one,” he said soon after the win and added, “We’ll celebrate it well. Amazing achievement and everybody contributed, so hats off to everyone. That’s what this team is all about – just keep fighting. That’s the characteristic of this team, keep learning to fight for each other and find a way by doing the hard yards. In the first Test, they played well and credit where it’s due. They played extremely well in the first innings too in tough conditions, we found a way of contributing,” he said which was also echoed by his skipper Southee.
“Right up there. A special win to come back after being asked to follow-on,” said Southee. “The guys will soak this up. The character showed by the guys has been very special. Neil has been doing this us for a long period of time. It came off for him at the right time. Great for Test cricket for all the guys that are here. Having Test matches like these is good for Tests going forward.” he said.
