No amount of County Championship match practice could have prepared Jacob Bethell for the preposterous pea-roller that dragged New Zealand back into this contest.
The lack of Bethell appearances in a Warwickshire shirt, amid a stint of bench-warming at the Indian Premier League, was one of the major talking points in the build-up to this series.
A thousand first-class runs before the end of May wouldn’t have made a jot of difference here, though. The 22-year-old was technically ‘in’ as he shaped up to his 35th delivery, from Matt Henry, and jabbed down forlornly.
It was hard to recall anything quite like it. A reflection backed up on Test Match Special by the statistician Andy Zaltzman, who revealed that of all deliveries to have pitched within nine to 10 metres of the stumps over the last 20 years of Test cricket in England, this was lowest trajectory for reaching the target.
But there were other entries unlikely to be out of place in a top 10: the first ball of the match from Henry rolled along the floor on its way to wicketkeeper Tom Blundell, and although not as exaggerated, Jamie Smith had reason to compare notes with Bethell when his namesake Nathan hit middle stump halfway up to end his battling 39. Blundell, one of the world’s best glovemen, let through 20 byes across two innings.
A dozen other deliveries reared up at batsmen: Kyle Jamieson wore one on the body before undergoing a concussion check for a helmet hit during a cavalier 38 not out, Ben Duckett was rapped on the glove, Bethell in the back, to name a few.
Jacob Bethell was bowled by a ball from Matt Henry that barely bounced off the floor
Ben Stokes was also left in disbelief at the excessive sideways movement in the Lord’s pitch
And it has not only been the inconsistent bounce that has thrust this latest Lord’s pitch into the dock. Excessive sideways movement was also at play, leading to Ben Stokes staring down the surface in disbelief when New Zealand seamer Smith bent one in from wide of the crease that straightened 0.9 degrees.
It might not sound much on paper, but try playing that at 85 miles per hour. The only question of Stokes was whether he might have covered his off stump better.
The England captain’s dismissal came during a sequence of four wickets for one run in 11 balls. And one of 30 in the first 125.3 overs of this weather-hit match.
Had it not been for rain, this might have been England’s third two-day finish in the space of six matches following Test cricket’s answer to speed dating in Perth and Melbourne.
And it drew attention to the struggles the Marylebone Cricket Club and their groundsman Karl McDermott have had in preparing pitches that provide a balance between bat and ball.
Three years ago, such was the lack of pace and movement that the Ashes fixture turned into a bouncer barrage in which batsmen snared themselves in their own egos.
Given their history, Lord’s Tests are prestigious events. This was its 150th. Yet for all of its splendour, as Nasser Hussain said on Sky Sports, the most important part of this 212-year-old ground is the 22-yard strip in the middle.
While the MCC do not want to present dull cricket, neither from an economic perspective do they want Tests to finish in fewer than four days. Opposition dependent, matches lasting all five return profits of between £7-13million.
One solution would be to completely relay the square at a cost of £12m. However, that would put Lord’s out of action for two years.
It has led to other options being explored, such as drop-in pitches being introduced as early as 2029 for first-class matches, which would allow a 2030 start for Tests.
In the shorter-term, they used an innovative ‘steaming’ process to purify a section of the 20-pitch square – a technique borrowed from the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon that involves nailing a canvas cover to the outfield, then pumping in 200-degree steam to a depth of seven inches, effectively sterilising it by removing weeds and pathogens without the need for chemicals.
Theoretically it should produce purer grass and therefore truer bounce. As Bethell can attest, it did not.
