LEEDS, England, 7 June 2004 — Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard removed four New Zealand batsmen in 20 balls yesterday to give England a great chance of a series-clinching victory.
The two pacemen took two wickets each as New Zealand slumped from 75-1 to 91-5 having trailed England by 117 on first innings at Headingley.
Behind 1-0 after a seven-wicket loss at Lord’s, the Kiwis now appear to have little chance of squaring the series. Hampered by injuries to two key players, they limped to 102 for five by the close, still 15 behind with a day to go. Geraint Jones struck his first Test century and Andrew Flintoff was out for 94 as England amassed 526 in reply to New Zealand’s 409.
Jones scored a six and 15 fours in his 100 and, although a tiring New Zealand bowling attack took the last three wickets for no runs, England now has a good chance of beating the Black Caps again to take an unassailable 2-0 series lead.
New Zealand also squandered 62 extras. And its problems got worse when spin bowler Daniel Vettori limped off after tearing a hamstring in the field. He won’t be around if England bats again.
New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming promoted himself to open the innings but fell for 11 with 39 runs on the board.
Bowling round the wicket, Flintoff found the edge his bat and the ball also deflected off a pad to short leg Andrew Strauss who took a difficult catch. Mark Richardson and Brendon McCullum moved the score on to 75 before England took four quick wickets for 16 runs.
Hoggard made a delivery rise sharply and Richardson, trying to fend the ball off, gloved a catch to wicketkeeper Jones. He made 40.
Two balls later, Harmison found the edge of McCullum’s bat and Marcus Trescothick dived low to his right to take a reflex action catch and remove him for 20. Nathan Astle was next to go with the score on 84 when a ball from Hoggard kept low and trapped him lbw in front of the stumps.
New Zealand sent in seam bowler Daryl Tuffey to try and protect the rest of the specialist batsmen. He managed seven runs before he tried to fend off a short pitched delivery from Harmison and lofted an easy catch off his gloves to Jones.
At 91-5 New Zealand was still 26 runs behind and, with Michael Papps and Vettori injured, seemed to be headed for another loss.
After Trescothick’s 132 and Jones’ 100, Flintoff should have been a third England century maker.
Having hit a six and 12 fours, Flintoff went for another big hit and was caught in the deep. The wicket ended a sixth wicket partnership of 118 with Jones and the Lancashire all-rounder also shared a fifth wicket partnership of 99 with Graham Thorpe, who made 34.
