England cricket team head coach Trevor Bayliss felt very disappointed with English batting line-up. Talking about the disastrous batting performances on the opening day of the two-match Test series against the hosts New Zealand, Bayliss mentioned, “It looked like we were rabbits in headlights”.
It is the first ever day/night Test match on the New Zealand soil which is running at Eden Park (Auckland). New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson decided to bowl first after winning the toss in the first Test of this series. England was bundled out for just 58 runs while nine batsmen failed to reach the double-digit score including five ducks.
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Speaking about that batting performances, Bayliss mentioned at Sky Sports, “It looked like we were rabbits in headlights.”
He said, “It was a very poor effort today – it wasn’t good enough. I thought New Zealand bowled extremely well and we batted equally as badly. Today we were off it not just a little bit, but a long way and we were not good enough.”
The former Australian first-class cricketer further added, “I’m not the only one in our changing room who will be embarrassed. I’m never angry but I’m disappointed. We’ll have to sit down and have a good talk about it.”
Speaking about the issue of today’s English batting, the 55-years old said, “Everyone was making the same kind of mistakes. Their feet were not moving properly and the decision-making was not what it usually is. The ball was swinging a little bit but when the ball’s pitched up, when it’s full, it’s as simple as it gets – you’ve got to play forward. A lot of our guys were out today from behind the crease to fairly full balls. When someone sneezed everyone caught a cold.”
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In reply, New Zealand scored 175/3 at the end of the day. Skipper Kane Williamson is batting on 91 runs and Henry Nicholls is batting on 24 runs. Jeet Raval, Tom Latham and Ross Taylor were dismissed for 3, 26 and 20 runs respectively.
During the New Zealand innings, England had a run-out appeal against Williamson when he was at non-striker end on 64 runs. Ross Taylor’s drive hit the non-striker end wicket while bowler Chris Woakes claimed the ball touched his hand before hitting the wicket. It was a half-appeal from Woakes while the review was unable to detect whether Woakes’ finger had a touch on the ball or not. The decision went to batsman’s favour at the end.
Talking about that, Bayliss believed that was out. He claimed, “It was out. He got a finger on it. Everybody knows Woakesy is not the sort of bloke to cheat anyone. But I would have liked a stronger appeal.”
