England were made to sweat on the first day of the Trent Bridge Test, as a triple-century opening stand between Devon Conway and Tom Latham gave New Zealand control.
The hosts received a boost before play, with newly crowned No.1 Test bowler Matt Henry and Oval centurion Glenn Phillips both ruled out by injury. But that was all they had to celebrate until well into the third session, as New Zealand’s opening pair compiled a monster stand.
Each crossed 150, with this their second triple-century stand in quick succession. They crossed the mark against West Indies in December 2025, in a game in which the pair became the first openers in the history of first-class cricket to each make two centuries in the same game.
On a flat pitch, chances were hard to come by, and the pair made sure not to give England a way in. However, Ben Stokes was left to rue two lax moments from his wicketkeeper, Jamie Smith, returning to the side after missing the second Test on paternity leave. First, in the 40th over, he discouraged the England captain from reviewing an lbw appeal generated by Shoaib Bashir. Smith suggested Conway had hit the ball. He had, but only after the ball had flicked the pad, and ball-tracking returned three reds.
In the 64th over, Smith erred again, shelling a simple leg-side chance as Latham gloved an attempted pull off Gus Atkinson. In Smith’s absence, stand-in gloveman James Rew came under scrutiny for a drop-strewn performance at The Oval. On this evidence, fielding coach Sarah Taylor has plenty to do to ensure England’s keepers are up to scratch, especially set against Tom Blundell’s exemplary work standing up to the stumps.
England finish a tough day strongly
With the new ball in sight, England finally broke through, and one wicket brought another. Stokes nicked off Latham before Conway hoicked Joe Root’s part-time off-spin into the deep. Two late wickets gave England further relief, Rachin Ravindra skying Atkinson for Smith to settle under and Archer nicking off Henry Nicholls one ball later.
The game is a crucial one for England, and not just because the series is locked at 1-1. The Stokes-McCullum-Key era has struggled both on and off the field in recent times, losing 4-1 to Australia, and with questions over the team’s culture coming to a head when Stokes and Atkinson were involved in an altercation in a nightclub. Though both were cleared of any serious wrongdoing, with the Cricket Regulator finding the pair had no case to answer, England still suffered, a heavily rotated team losing heavily at The Oval. There have been suggestions that the relationship between English cricket’s power brokers is fraying, and a first defeat in a home three-match Test series since 2012 would heap more pressure onto their shoulders.
With the pitch flat, England will hope to repeat their 2022 efforts against New Zealand at this ground. Then, each side traded 500-plus first-innings totals before Jonny Bairstow’s extraordinary final-day century pulled off a chase for the ages. It is an innings that is considered to have launched the Bazball era. England might need to take all their chances from hereon to prevent the same venue from witnessing its end.
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