4 now, Bairstow needs a huge bollocking for that, getting out to a good ball is one thing but what he did was just stupid.
Building to a thrilling finish. Sense close has come at a good time for NZ and they'll come back refreshed in the morning, when it has been difficult to bat throughout the Test
15 overs to go. Need to have knocked off a significant number of runs for the loss of no more than 6 wickets before then I reckon. Say 20 needed with 4 wickets remaining worst case. Still wouldn't be confident with our record of collapses!
The half-hour is very important, get through that and probably can go on to win, lose a wicket or two and NZ will be favourites.
Finally avoided a collapse in the betting and as he does many times gets England over the line. What a player Joe Root is, a class apart.
i see both root and alastair cook reached their 10,000 test runs 157 days after their 31st birthdays. cook was a day younger, however, due to the leap years in his first 31 years. however, root managed it in 9 years and 171 days, whereas cook took 10 years and 87 days. (note: these times are from 1st day of test debut to 1st day of match the 10,000th run came in). the only other player to to it in less than 12 years was raoul dravid who took 11 years and 280 days, more than two years longer than root. root is the 14th player to reach 10k. among other notables (and they're all notables really) lara 13 years 250 days tendulkar 15 years 121 days however, lara, tendulkar, and sangakkara took 195 innings and ponting 196. root took 218 innings and cook 229. only border, chanderpaul, and steve waugh took more innings. of the 14, only cook (45.35) ended with an average current below root's (49.57). jayawardene (49.84) was the only other one to average below 50. the highest averages were sangakkara (57.40), kallis (55.37), and tendulkar (53.78). higher averages below the top 14 in the most runs list are sobers (31st most test runs, ave 57.78), steve smith (33rd, 59.77, 8010 runs, still playing). bradman is 55th on the list.