England’s hopes of taking control of New Zealand took a blow on the third day of the Rothesay Series decider, with the hosts losing four wickets in the morning session at Trent Bridge.
Ben Duckett’s restorative century put the hosts in position to go well beyond the tourists’ 438 all out as they reached 223 for two on Friday, but the Black Caps fought hard to even things up again in Nottingham.
At lunch, England were 124 behind on 314 for six, with Harry Brook’s unbeaten half-century the key contribution.
Joe Root, Jacob Bethell and Jamie Smith were early casualties, all falling in the first six overs of the day, before a stand of 56 between Brook and Ben Stokes halted the decline.
But where the England captain’s dogged determination with the ball successfully hauled his side back into contention, he was unable to do the same with the bat.
Having scrambled 15 difficult runs, including two thick edges that had Devon Conway interested at gully, he was bowled through the gate by New Zealand’s concussion substitute Zak Foulkes.
It was an excellent delivery from round the wicket, Foulkes angling in and drawing the ball back off the pitch, but Stokes left a big gap between bat and pad and left himself exposed.
There was a muted reaction from the crowd, who had roared Stokes to the crease in a renewed show of support following the recent disciplinary drama that saw him miss last week’s Oval Test, who had been hoping to see the skipper lead the charge.
Instead, that fell to Brook. He was 51 not out at the break, working for his runs from the off. He was beaten on the outside and dug out an inswinging yorker from Will O’Rourke before getting off the mark but was always alive to scoring chances.
He threaded boundaries behind square on the off side and punished anything short but found Nathan Smith tricky to get on top off, with wicketkeeper Tom Blundell pressuring him by reprising his trick of coming up to the stumps. He survived a couple of awkward moments to lead Gus Atkinson through to the interval.
Smith started his day by gaining a tight lbw decision against Root, his stump-to-stump seamers doing the trick, and then had Jamie Smith nicking to slip for one. In between, O’Rourke removed Bethell without addition to his overnight score of 74.
