Zak Foulkes, New Zealand's first concussion substitute in Test cricket, played a pivotal role on day three at Trent Bridge, taking 3-35 to help restrict England to 354 in their first innings. After England had raced to 223 for two on Friday at 4.96 runs per over, New Zealand's bowlers employed a deliberately dull strategy to stifle the scoring, resulting in England adding only 131 runs at 3.02 an over while losing eight wickets.
Boring Bowling Strategy Pays Off
Foulkes revealed that New Zealand's plan was to be as boring as possible to dry up the runs. "We just tried to stay as boring as possible really and try to dry out the runs," said Foulkes. "Yesterday they got off to a fast start and we had to peg it back and peg it back, and we knew if we could dry it up, things could happen in our favour." The tactic worked, with England's Shoaib Bashir describing the collapse as "quite disappointing."
Foulkes, who replaced Blair Tickner after the latter was struck on the helmet by a Jofra Archer bouncer on Friday, dismissed Harry Brook and Ben Stokes, both bowled by deliveries that hit cracks. "I'm going to say they hit cracks, which is a good sign with us bowling last," Foulkes said. "We just had to pry away on that top of off and hopefully the odd one would do something and we'd get our reward." He added that the movement was largely due to the pitch, not his own skill: "I don't think them doing that much is my doing really. I'm more of a swing bowler and there's not a lot of swing out there, so I've bowled a lot of three-quarter balls. They just happened to move quite a bit – and I think there's going to be quite a bit more of that during the next couple of days."
New Zealand in Command
Despite losing both openers early in their second innings, New Zealand reached stumps on 120 for three, leading by 204 runs. The pitch is increasingly offering assistance to spin as well as seam, setting up a challenging chase for England. Bashir acknowledged the difficulty: "I wouldn't put a number on it, especially with this side. We've got unbelievable cricketers in this team," he said of the team's target-chasing potential.
Foulkes described the unusual process of becoming a concussion substitute. "It was a very strange process," he said. "As 12th man you still do your training in the morning, so I got through about seven overs at 8am, and then I was in the gym when we lost our last couple of wickets. It was a niggly one trying to switch on to actually be a part of the game. The process takes a while – the doctor has to do his tests and make sure there's concussion and stuff like that, and then there's paperwork to be done. So I went on the field, had to come off the field, Tom [Latham, the New Zealand captain] had to sign a few papers and then yeah, I was in the game."
