A lot to do for England….but they can still win

England face an uphill task today as they go in pursuit of scoring the remaining 218 runs to win the Test Match. Yesterday Andrew Strauss and Michael Vaughan took England to a comfortable 76 for 1 after losing Alistair Cook. England’s challenge today is to play the spin of Daniel Vettori who took 5 for 66 in the first innings. England need to score at around 3 an over and the game will be there’s. Easy said then done when facing Vettori who yesterday was getting some remarkable bounce from a wicket that’s still very much alive.

We also saw in the first innings that the New Zealand pace attack was very dominant and those with Vettori will cause problems. 0’Brien made life uncomfortable for most of the English batsman with frequent close LBW shouts. These two test matches have proved to England that this series wont be a walk in the park like they expected. They’ve been dominated by a fairly ordinary test match side in every day of the series so far. Without Monty Panesar I really don’t know where England would be in this match at the moment.

Changes to need to be made in the England side. Bell and Collingwood are both under pressure for places, despite what Bell himself has said. Collingwood has the burden of an injury but Bell hasn’t had a score in a long time. He once again failed, this time with 8 in the first innings and this second innings will be an important one for himself. He needs runs. This New Zealand attack has really embarrassed England a lot. Like I said a little earlier O’Brien, who yesterday bowled in the wind, bowled brilliantly well. Mills also bowled well and at times was a little unlucky. England should be able to play New Zealand’s seam attack with ease but their main challenge will be playing Vettori.

There’s a lot of time in this test match still to play so England don’t need to go mad. If they can accumulate runs by scoring one’s and two’s then they can chase this score down. If they can find quick singles and turn one’s into two’s then Vettori will get unsettled. When the bad ball comes they need to punish it and take the chances they have. What New Zealand need to do today is take a burst of two or three wickets and the test match might be there’s.