Kyle Jamieson employed some unusual methods to complete the first of two great Lord’s comeback stories on Thursday. England were left cursing his ingenuity.
Jamieson, 31, considered his ‘career mortality’ when a stress fracture of his back reopened where a screw from a previous operation was positioned in February 2024.
Faced with the real possibility of premature retirement, it led to some radical thinking from a player with a history of injuries. ‘I had a gut feeling that there were further answers out there. Lucky for me I found them,’ he told Daily Mail Sport.
Looking outside cricket, the giant New Zealand bowler came across Auckland-based couple Chelsea Lane and Matt Dallow, and, with the blessing of his country’s cricket board, became something of a trailblazer, employing them as his personal performance team.
In a recent interview with this newspaper, ex-England captain Michael Vaughan advocated a similarly modern approach, by suggesting players bring their own coaches to Test matches.
Jamieson doesn’t go that far, but the process of checking in with Lane, previously head performance therapist for Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors during winning NBA Championship seasons of 2015 and 2017, and Dallow, her husband, a winter Olympian bobsledder turned performance coach, is now routine after every bowling session.
Kyle Jamieson made an impressive return to Test cricket after a 26-month absence at Lord’s
The New Zealand fast bowler took five for 62 at the Home of Cricket, putting two years of injury woe behind him
‘I’m just happy to put distance between the injury time and now. Playing, that’s good enough for me’
The pair have a history of rebuilding athletes after chronic physical issues, advising on biomechanics and setting gym programmes, making bodies robust for specific actions like fast bowling.
This will have been one of Jamieson’s better reports. He confessed: ‘You never know if it’s behind you, really. You’re hopeful and trying to do every little thing to keep it as far behind you as possible. I’m just happy to put distance between the injury time and now. Playing, that’s good enough for me.’
New Zealand’s main threat in this series was expected to come from the experienced Matt Henry, but his participation beyond a new-ball burst on the first morning was put into jeopardy by back spasms.
Step forward, the 6ft 8in Jamieson, who marked a 26-month absence from Test cricket by claiming his sixth five-wicket haul.
Figures of five for 62 surged his overall haul to 85 in 20 appearances, at an average of 19.3, putting him firmly on course to surpass Kiwi great Richard Hadlee’s national record of reaching 100 wickets in 25 Tests, set in 1979.
Jamieson’s loosener – a full toss outside off stump – gifted Emilio Gay his first England boundary but it did not take long for him to get in the groove, exploiting the atmospheric conditions by jagging the ball both ways off a pitch ‘steamed’ in the same way Wimbledon tennis courts are, in a bid to inject some life into it.
The seam movement was not as lavish as that produced by his much shorter team-mate Nathan Smith, but sufficient to catch the edges of left-handers Gay and Ben Stokes’ bats.
On days like these, as Ollie Robinson later showed, put the ball in the right areas and its behaviour or a batsman’s indecision can do the rest.
Having spent 20 minutes in survival mode, Jamie Smith misjudged a leave and lost his off stump while tail-enders Gus Atkinson and Robinson succumbed to deliveries on a good length that did enough to unpick their defences.
Henry’s incapacity means New Zealand’s remaining trio of seamers will have to be managed carefully in the second innings, but in condemning England to their lowest tally in Lord’s Tests between the sides, they gave themselves a chance for a significant spell off their feet.
England batsman Jamie Smith trudges off after being bowled by Jamieson
Jamieson is firmly on course to surpass Kiwi great Richard Hadlee’s national record of reaching 100 wickets in 25 Tests, set in 1979
They complemented each other perfectly. Will O’Rourke was consistent with both his pace – operating at just under 90mph – and angle of attack, arcing the ball in towards the right-hander’s rib cage from a release point beyond the perpendicular.
O’Rourke snared both Jacob Bethell and Joe Root, and would have accounted for England’s big three but for top scorer Harry Brook being spilled at point while still in single figures.
At the other end, Smith – a successful County Championship operator with Worcestershire and Surrey – extended his form of last week when his eight-wicket match in Belfast propelled Ireland to an innings Test defeat.
Using the crease to switch the lines he bowled planted seeds of doubt in England heads on whether deliveries would go on to hit the stumps or not, and his shorter stature meant they arrived at bail-trimming height.
It was a combination that provided the tourists with the advantage until Robinson, making a superb comeback of his own, sensationally plagiarised the blueprint.
