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England v New Zealand: second men’s Test, day four – live | England v New Zealand 2026
Key events
WICKET! Phillips c Bethell b Archer 3 (NZ 307-6)
I take it all back! Archer wins the duel, Bethell takes the catch at gully, Phillips has his first flop of the series and I’d like to congratulate Joe Root on his shrewd captaincy.
70th over: New Zealand 307-5 (Mitchell 59, Phillips 3) Root springs another surprise by bringing himself on. An off-spinner against two right-handers – why not Bethell, who moves the ball away from them? Mitchell may be licking his lips, and no sooner have I typed that than he plays a reverse sweep for four to reach fifty, 51 off 68 balls. He follows up with a dismissive cut for four and another reverse for four more. In between, to be fair, Root bowls a crafty arm ball that drifts past the outside edge. But all told that over was a gift to New Zealand.
Drinks: England better, NZ still in charge
69th over: New Zealand 295-5 (Mitchell 47, Phillips 3) Root responds to Phillips’ arrival by bringing back Archer. You can see why, but is it wise? He’s only been off for 20 minutes, and the second new ball is less than an hour away. Maybe it’s just for two overs. Archer duly hones his bouncer and dumps Phillips on his backside, where he spent much of Wednesday evening. And that’s drinks, with England much improved today – more orthodox, more accurate, more threatening – but NZ still leading by 395 runs. They could declare now and win by a street, unless Harry Brook goes bananas.
68th over: New Zealand 293-5 (Mitchell 46, Phillips 2) So here is Glenn Phillips, the batsman of the series, getting off the mark with a confident clip for two. I was at the Oval on Wednesday (many thanks to my son Dan) and Phillips was in a different class from the rest with his decisiveness, not to mention his courage in the face of Archer’s ferocity. If he’d been in the top five at Lord’s, New Zealand might now be closing in on a series win.
67th over: New Zealand 290-5 (Mitchell 46, Phillips 0) Root went for Sonny Baker rather than Fisher, preferring puppyish pace to seasoned precision. But he was wary with his field, posting only one slip. The ploy misfired at first as Baker found some bounce and Mitchell was able to ride it and guide the ball into the wide open space between slip and gully. But then Root, after a chat with Duckett, put himself at leg slip, and it worked a treat. A small triumph for Rew too.
Wicket! Blundell c Rew b Baker 16 (NZ 290-5)
The leg slip comes good! Blundell flicks a full ball off his toes, Root spills it, but Rew cleans up.
66th over: New Zealand 284-4 (Mitchell 41, Blundell 15) Two more singles off Tongue’s over. A Sky caption confirms that the ball has been moving more off the seam today than yesterday, so Matt Fisher could be effective.
65th over: New Zealand 282-4 (Mitchell 40, Blundell 14) Singles for both batters and when Archer tries a bouncer he bangs it in too short, so it sails away for four byes. England have already conceded more extras in this innings (16) than New Zealand did in the previous one (9), so the total score in that department so far is England 9, NZ 69.
64th over: New Zealand 274-4 (Mitchell 38, Blundell 12) Mitchell nudges a single, making that last factoid instantly obsolete. Tongue tries to york Blundell, who digs the ball out of his feet, then takes one on the hip bone and winces. Tongue tries the yorker again, and again it gives Blundell no bother. Root moves from slip to leg slip, a ploy he has surely over-used in this game. Keep it simple!
63rd over: New Zealand 273-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 12) The sun comes out as Archer continues. He dishes up his first freebie of the day, allowing Blundell to leg-glance for four. Blundell, always busy, even after a hard day’s standing up to the stumps, has raced into double figures and scored all the runs in this partnership.
62nd over: New Zealand 269-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 8) Tongue, not at his best in the first innings, is in the groove now. He keeps Mitchell quiet and collects a maiden.
“Looks like the weather at the Oval is on a par with us here in Fuerteventura where I’m enjoying my retirement on paradise island,” says Andy House. It’s all right for some. “No question that an awful chain of events has led to England fielding a team that has proved no match at the Oval for an excellent and battle hardened Kiwi side.
“Call me old fashioned, however but I cannot agree with the general Guardian stance that Stokes and Atkinson have been unfairly punished and that somehow the England team management have brought this crisis upon themselves.
“Actions have consequences and whilst none of us expect either the captain of the England team or his players to be saints, we do expect a certain level of responsibility and common sense from our millionaire elite cricketers not least after the debacle in Australia where I witnessed the final humiliation in Sydney.
“Truth to tell, Stokes and Atkinson thoroughly deserved to be dropped and they owe their team mates big time in the likely 3rd test decider after letting down their fellow players the management and the fans so badly.”
My stance, for what it’s worth, is not that Stokes and Atkinson were unfairly punished. It’s that their team-mates were unfairly punished. In a team sport, suspensions seldom make sense.
61st over: New Zealand 269-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 8) Jofra, bowling 87mph, finds the edge yet again as Blundell goes back and pokes with half a bat, but the ball drops short of Root at first slip. If only England had started like this on Thursday morning.
60th over: New Zealand 267-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 6) Blundell, who loves joining Mitchell to torment England, tucks Tongue for two and cover-drives for three, uppish but safe.
“Good morning.” says John Starbuck. “I was wondering if James Rew, unfortunately drafted in a bit too soon, should change his name to Roux, seeing it’s been something of a mixture so far.” Ha.
59th over: New Zealand 262-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 1) Classic Test bowling from Jofra, who eats left-handers for breakfast. He sauntered in, landed the ball on off stump and angled it away. This time Brook – back in his comfort zone at second slip, not first – took a comfortable catch. Archer then kept it tight to the right-handed Tom Blundell, and England nearly nabbed another wicket as Blundell took a silly single to Ben Duckett, whose throw was on target until it landed on an old pitch and turned into an off-cutter.
WICKET! Nicholls c Brook b Archer 121 (NZ 261-4)
Justice for Jofra! And redemption for Harry Brook.
58th over: New Zealand 261-3 (Nicholls 121, Mitchell 37) At the Vauxhall end, Root goes for experience in the form of Josh Tongue, who has played 11 Tests. He too starts strongly, finding bounce and movement. Henry Nicholls may have a hundred but he hasn’t got his eye in today, and he takes a blow or two to the fingers. But after having some treatment, he calmly dabs a single to get down the other end. He’s the Ollie Pope figure for NZ, the guy they’d already discarded, but they trusted him to replace Kane Williamson and he’s actually been (whisper it) an upgrade.
Dropped!
57th over: New Zealand 260-3 (Nicholls 120, Mitchell 37) You remember those pictures of Jofra howling with frustration last night? He’s already been doing it again. His first ball is a beauty, squaring up Daryl Mitchell and drawing the edge – which is dropped by Harry Brook at slip. Brook has had such a poor match, bringing one great shot when England needed him to be the senior pro. Archer beats Mitchell next ball, and has a shout for LBW against him (going down). Some of the blame belongs to Root, who started with only one slip, then moved himself back in there afterwards. Along the way, the batters calmly collect eight runs, four from that drop. It’s a cruel game.
The players are out there. Joe Root is chatting to Matt Fisher, whose batting gave England a glimmer of hope yesterday morning. And the ball is with Jofra Archer, who will come gliding in from the pavilion end.
England have also missed Ollie Pope. He was the odd-job man under Stokes, ready to take over as the captain or the keeper, and doing both jobs well enough to attract little comment. With hindsight, he would have been a better understudy for Jamie Smith here than poor James Rew. As would Jonny Bairstow.
On Sky they’re talking about … Ben Stokes. He’s been missed as a captain, standing at mid-off, exuding energy, bigging up the bowler with his belief. He’s been missed as a bowler: this morning, at 250 for three, he would be handing the ball to himself. And he’s even been missed as a batter. Scratchy as he has been recently, he can still stick around, as he showed in Australia. With the bat, Ben Stokes has turned into Ben Foakes – the designated driver in a team of drinkers. The whole package means that when he’s there, England have 12 or 13 players, and when he’s not, they have nine or ten.
If you’d like some action right away, there’s a World Cup match just starting in Southampton. It’s another episode in a long-running series: David v Goliath. Do join Megan Maurice to see if Babette de Leede’s bowlers can rattle Australia’s big names.
Preamble
Morning everyone, or should that be hello darkness, my old friend? For England supporters of a certain age, this match has been a flashback to the Eighties. First the management picked the wrong response to Ben Stokes’ and Gus Atkinson’s big night out, suspending them when Harry Brook had merely been fined for a worse offence, perhaps because the ECB was afraid of looking weak. Then, just as fortune favours the brave, so misfortune homed in on the faint-hearted.
England lost the Player of the Match from Lord’s, Ollie Robinson, to injury and their wicketkeeper, Jamie Smith, to the birth of his second child. Suddenly the team had no spine – no captain, no keeper, no new-ball pair. The selectors put their faith in what Micky Stewart, whose name is on the pavilion at the Oval, once called “a lot of inexperience”. Joe Root found himself not so much the stand-in captain as the babysitter.
The kids were all right at first, then fell apart as Root tried too hard to play the Stokes way and get funky with his fields. The New Zealanders, who are known on the circuit as nice guys, have been far more orthodox and more efficient. By the end of yesterday the crowd was witnessing an unprecedented spectacle: the England Lions being fed to the Christians.
The family of Shaun Burton, say they are “devastated” by the loss.
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Key events
In the opening half an hour against Cape Verde, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch.
Kyle Green gets in touch: “Your highlighting of Lalas and his absurdity is something that has prevented me from wanting to watch the coverage on Fox. While every channel has its pros and cons I just can’t.
“I’m 45 and probably the youngest of anyone who remembers him as a player instead of an opinionated insert insult here. As for the match this could be more competitive than it looks on paper Spain need a win the pressure is on them. Saudi Arabia could hold out for a draw and see what happens in their last match. “
News from the England camp, and it seems to be good news on Declan Rice.
“I’m ready and fit, raring to go. I was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time. Obviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff but it was a smart decision.
“In the end, that last 20 minutes is probably where you pick up the most, and it’s where you play a 70-minute match. But that last 20 is where you really feel your body going for it. And I think it was a smart decision because the last few days I felt really, really good.”
Alex Reid has penned today’s weekend special Football Daily.
Portugal v Uzbekistan on Tuesday enticingly pits the incredibly nice, incredibly 41-year-old-superstar-tolerant Roberto Martínez against Fabio Cannavaro, who’s won a Ballon d’Or as a player and the Chinese Super League as a coach. While the fixture following that game really does see the dream of Thomas Tuchel – in his first international job with England – taking on Queiroz, who is in charge of his ninth national side with Ghana.
The expected formations are 4-2-3-1 for Spain, and 5-3-2 for the Saudi Arabians.
The Saudi team features two Donis changes: Ali Lajami, a defender, and Nasser Al Dawsari, a midfielder, are preferred to Mohammed Abu Al Shamat and Mohamed Kanno. You may recall Salem Al Dawsari, the Saudi captain, as the man who scored the winner against Argentina.
An entertaining read, even for those of us who have just seen the clips.
In a conversation where his co-panelist is casually reminiscing about his days playing alongside Messi or exchanging shirts with Ronaldo Nazário at the World Cup, what exactly is Lalas going to talk about – coming on as a second-half substitute for Earnie Stewart in a friendly against Scotland in 1998? Helping the Kansas City Wizards finish last in the 1999 MLS Western Conference? Did Lalas enjoy an elite playing career? No. But does he do the background reading that could compensate for his relative lack of standing in a conversation with titans like Henry and Zlatan? Also no. But is he charming or funny or charismatic or otherwise magnetic on screen? Eh, no.
For the record, I once interviewed Alexi Lalas on the challenge of playing against Romario in the 1994 World Cup. He had this to say:
“He could kill you in so many different ways. If you remember from that World Cup, he scored so many types of goals. That ranged from solo adventures to an outside-of-the-right-foot half-volley off a corner kick. Romario was both the most difficult to play against and the best that I have faced.
“Roberto Baggio was doing his thing, but in terms of consistency and living up to the hype, he [Romario] was the best. As with all stars, there was a moment when the fans sit up in their seats, and that was a feeling I got with Romario. When it got close to him and the potential for his involvement in a play was there, everybody sat up in their seat. They knew that something spectacular would be happening.”
Saturday’s match reports here.
The Saudi Arabia coach, and Blackburn legend, Georgios Donis, spoke about the challenges facing his team: “Spain is not the same team when Yamal or Williams are on the bench.
“While they still have plenty of possession, they lack the individual one-on-one penetration when these two are missing. I’m not saying it’s a problem for Spain, but when those players are missing, they play in a different way. We saw this very clearly against Cape Verde.
“We are playing against one of the best teams in the world, and it’s very important that when you play against these kinds of teams, you should enjoy the experience and respect the opponent, but not too much.
“It is very hard for any team playing against Spain to have any time in possession. So what we must do is to be more in control of our movement and compact, and when the ball goes through the lines, be able to defend dynamically.
“It’s nice to see miracles in football, and we’ve seen favourites losing against underdogs. Of course, it’s great for Saudi football to have a great memory of the result against Argentina, but we aren’t drawing anything from that.
“I think we’ll feel more pressure in that [Cape Verde] game than we will against Spain.”
The Spain coach, Luis De La Fuente had this to say in his Saturday press conference: “This generation of footballers is highly competitive and really fired up… It’s going to be a completely different story,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday. There is no drama or crisis. The bottom line is simply that we need to win tomorrow.”
Four changes for Spain: Lamine Yamal, Pedro Porro, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena also come into the side with Marcos Llorente, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres and Gavi dropping out.
The teams – Lamine Yamal starts
Spain: Simon, Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella, Gonzalez, Rodri, Yamal, Olmo, Baena, Oyarzabal. Subs: Raya, Joan Garcia, Pubill, Grimaldo, Eric Garcia, Llorente, Merino, Torres, Fabian, Gavi, Pino, Williams, Zubimendi, Munoz, Iglesias.
Saudi Arabia: Al Owais, Abdulhamid, Tambakti, Lajami, Al Amri, Al Harbi, Nasser Al Dawsari, Al Khaibari, Al Juwayr, Al Buraikan, Salem Al Dawsari. Subs: Al Aqidi, Al Kassar, Majrashi, Yahya, Al Shehri, Al Boushal, Kadesh, Al Johani, Al Ghannam, Al Hajji, Al Hamdan, Mandash, Kanno, Thakri, Abu Al Shamat.
Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil)
Perhaps one of the Saudi -players can write themselves into this high-grade selection?
Perhaps it can be their goalkeeper.
Madrid screening of Spain v Saudi Arabia cancelled due to heat
The public screening of Spain’s World Cup match against Saudi Arabia in Madrid on Sunday has been cancelled because of extreme heat forecast for the Spanish capital, officials said.
The match, due to kick off at 6pm local time on Sunday, had been scheduled to be shown on a giant screen installed by the Spanish football federation (RFEF) at a fan zone in Plaza de Colón in central Madrid.
Madrid city council and the federation decided to cancel the screening after national weather agency AEMET issued an orange heat warning – the second-highest level – for the Madrid region, with temperatures forecast to reach 40C.
“The decision has been taken with the aim of protecting the health of attendees, event staff and support services involved in the event,” Madrid city hall said in a statement, apologising for any inconvenience.
Officials urged supporters to watch the match indoors in air-conditioned spaces and avoid prolonged exposure to the heat.
Large parts of Spain are experiencing unusually high temperatures for June as a mass of hot air from North Africa moves across the Iberian Peninsula.
A total of 13 of Spain’s 17 regions are on orange alert for heat on Sunday, while the northern Basque Country bordering France is on red alert, the highest level.
Authorities advised residents and visitors to take precautions during the heatwave, including drinking water regularly, staying in cool environments, limiting outdoor physical activity during the hottest hours of the day and taking extra care of vulnerable people. AFP
Can Saudi Arabia repeat the magic of 2022?
Argentina arrived in Qatar on a 36-game unbeaten run. When Lionel Messi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 10 minutes, a comfortable afternoon seemed in the offing. Saleh al-Shehri and Salem al-Dawsari had other ideas, Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside in the space of 13 minutes and the greatest comeback in Saudi Arabia football history was made. Argentina went on to lift the trophy, while defeats to Poland and Mexico meant the Saudis did not reach the knock-out stage.
Unai Simon over David Raya is a controversial choice for De la Fuentes. The Arsenal keeper could lay claim to being Europe’s best this season.
“Those at the Champions League final had a few more days, so I got there on the Wednesday night,” Raya says. “I arrived a bit before Fabián [Ruiz]. I was saying hello to some of the others in reception when he arrived. I went to say congratulations; that was almost the first thing I did. I couldn’t really talk [to him] after the final; I just didn’t have it in me. The next day we talked about the game properly. Just two mates chatting … I was happy for him that he could lift the trophy for a second time.”
A high pressure game for the European champions, as Sid Lowe reports.
“If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match. “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”
We wait to see what role Lamine Yamal will play today. His coach would surely like to be able to use him.
The worst mistake we could make would be to compare him to anyone. He is the midst of a process. He has exceptional footballing maturity and lives it all with total naturalness. He has great serenity and strength. We have to let him follow his path but those players who have something different are ready for that. They’re geniuses, like Dalí [who] can paint a picture, or Michelangelo. They’re different. What is exceptional to us, isn’t to them. In those extremes, they feel comfortable. Why? Because they are different. What we think is exceptional, they consider normal.
Preamble
Spain’s campaign did not get off to a flying start, and Luis de la Fuentes may wake up in the night to visions of Cape Verde’s Vozinha. He will have Georgia on his mind ever since Monday. Saudi Arabia are no pushovers and gave Uruguay a scare in their opening match. Memories of downing Argentina four years ago still abound, and so Spain might beware. They can ill afford to go into the final game with Uruguay at a disadvantage. All eyes on Lamine Yamal, whose fitness situation remains opaque, though Spain need their other forwards to come to the party.
Kick-off 5pm UK, 1pm ET, 2am AEST. Join me.
A topless man can be seen driving erratically in Edinburgh before abandoning his car and attacking a black man and a delivery rider.
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