Preview – England begin latest rebuild, announced the Cricinfo front page, betting on this latest one being a flop.  But then what happens?

This.  England batted first and this is what the Cricinfo guy said after their innings had finished:

5.45pm, tea  Well that is extraordinary. Two scintillating hundreds, first from Joe Root but then usurped by Jos Buttler. Eoin Morgan and Adil Rashid playing their parts too in big partnerships, and all after losing a wicket first ball of the innings! Just some of the records here: England’s first ODI score of over 400, the first score over 400 in an ODI in England, the most sixes in an innings from England, the world record seventh-wicket stand in an ODI. Few others I’m sure. But England have played a blinder here and if New Zealand can get anywhere close to chasing it, we’re in for an outrageous evening. See you in 25 mins…

The last over of the England innings went like this: 1 W W 6 1nb 6 1.  Both the sixes were hit by England’s number ten, Plunkett, in an innings consisting of those last four balls there after those two Ws.  This took England well past 400 just when it looked like they might not get to 400 after all, on account of Buttler and then Rashid (they of the record seventh-wicket stand) getting out near the end.

Jason Roy getting himself out to the first ball of the match was by no means at all the worst one-day innings you’ll ever see or hear about, because at least Roy only consumed one ball making zero runs.  Thirty balls making not much more than zero is what will cost you your place in an ODI side, not very few balls making very few.  Provided you don’t make too much of a habit of it, getting out first or second or third ball is okay.  It comes with the territory.

Paul Collingwood was recently accused by various scumbag headline writers - headline writers are the origin of most of the biggest media lies, I find - of calling for “no consequences” cricket.  But if you actually read the reports below the scumbag headlines by the scumbag headline writers, you find that what Collingwood really said was stuff like this:

“The guys in world cricket now who have taken the game to the next level are people like AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, David Warner, Chris Gayle and they are playing as if they are in the back yard. It’s as if there are no consequences on their wicket whatsoever. Somehow a coach has to get that environment, certainly in the one-day form of the game, to where he can say ‘lads, you’re backed, don’t worry, you have games to fail, go out there and prove what you can do’. I think that is an important factor in how to get the utmost amount of skills from each player.”

“It’s as if there are no consequences ...” Of course there are consequences if you make a succession of small scores and no big ones, as Collingwood perfectly well knows and as he never denied.  But the best players play as if that wasn’t the case, because they know that every few tries they’ll make big runs.

Talking of Jason Roy, Roy usually plays for Surrey, and also today, Surrey trounced Leicester with a day to spare, and are now promotion contenders.  Leicester, big deal, I hear you sneer.  But Surrey have had a bad habit of late of not taking enough wickets in such situations.  They have, over recent years, bought in all sorts of big name England or nearly-England bowlers, who then try to bowl sides out at the Oval and lose the will to live, never mind bowl.  This win was accomplished by younger bowlers with less starry names, notably by one young bowler called Curran, who also batted well.  Also, Surrey now have a new spinner who is coming along nicely called Ansari, and there is talk of him playing for England soon, because he bowls better than Moeen Ali.  But Surrey didn’t buy Ansari in after he had already proved his worth, they spotted him early and trained him up themselves.  Ansari is also quite a good batter, having learned in recent months the art of hitting boundaries, which he never used to do until this season.  It would be nice to see Surrey creating England players (or in Curran’s case maybe South African players, unless England come calling first) rather than just buying them in after someone else has created them, so to speak.

But I digress.  In the NZ reply to England, the one-man wrecking ball that is Brendan McCullum hit two fours and then got out, off the last three balls of the first over.  And whereas England were able to do without Roy, and later Stokes and new boy Billings, all of whom struck out with the bat, NZ really needed some slogging from McCullum to get them going, and they never truly recovered from his early departure.  There were, in other words, consequences to McCullum getting out so quickly.  See also: the recent World Cup Final.  NZ ended up getting less than half England’s score, losing by 210.

England won the first test match against NZ in style, only to lose the second not at all in style.  So they could easily make a hash of the next ODI against NZ, as everyone realises.  But in the meantime: hurrah, and I am now going to settle down to watch the TV highlights.