Choosing to take aggressive option: Bowling coach defends Stokes’s decision to field first in 2nd Test vs NZ

New Zealand scored a mammoth 318 runs for the loss of four wickets on day 1 of the second Test match against England.

England gave away 318 runs on the first day of the second Test match at Trent Bridge, playing against a Kane Williamson-less New Zealand. The hosts chose to bowl first after a tremendous performance in the first outing of the series, but the decision soon backfired as the Tom Latham-led team scored freely.

Ben Stokes’s decision to field first came under criticism, with the pundits questioning if the captain missed a trick or not. England bowling coach Jon Lewis, however, said that he was happy with the performance and the scoreboard would have looked drastically different if the catches had stuck in the hands of the fielders.

"The most important thing about the decision at the toss is that it was the aggressive play. We were coming out to bowl New Zealand out. Unfortunately, we missed a couple of chances but that's cricket,” Lewis said.

England dropped four chances on the day, with the most crucial one being Daryl Mitchell, who remained not out at 81 off 147 balls, securing a 149* run partnership with Tom Blundell.

"You can always bowl a slightly different length but we are choosing, at the moment, to take the aggressive option and be courageous in what we do. I liked the areas the guys bowled. We could have easily bowled them out for 250 and be sat now in a very different position," Lewis said.

For England, only Ben Stokes and James Anderson managed to pick wickets. Barring Anderson, all the bowlers were on the higher side of the economy rate, something that would desperately look to fix on day 2 of the Test match. England lead 1-0 in the three match Test series, hoping to salvage some pride in the World Test Championship cycle under the leadership of Ben Stokes.