Growing pains for young England

Viv Richards failed in the match in which he was talent spotted. Failed as a batsman, anyway. But Len Creed, the Bath bookmaker who convinced him to travel from Antigua to Somerset, saw in his fielding some of the skill, the athleticism and the attitude that was later to see him develop into one of the all-time greats. Sometimes it pays not to judge entirely on results or statistics.

The point of this? If you were to judge from the scorecard or the statistics, you would conclude that England had a wretched third day at Lord's. And it is true, they face an uphill struggle to save this match against a side who, so far, simply look better than them.

Take Jos Buttler for example. Butter conceded 26 byes during the New Zealand innings. While a fair few of them were all but unavoidable - a delivery from Moeen Ali, for example, spat out of a foothole and went to the boundary - there were also a fair few which Buttler will reflect that he should have done better.

But what we also saw was a young man, learning his trade, taking two outstanding catches. Catches of which Alan Knott or Keith Piper would have been proud. Catches that demonstrated huge amounts of potential. Catches that showed why he is worth persevering with.

We knew, when Buttler was first selected, that he was not the finished article. We knew he had not enjoyed even one full season as first-choice keeper in a county side and we knew that his selection was based upon potential more than achievement. We knew there would be days when he missed chances.

It would be a waste of the investment made in him to date to discontinue the experiment. He is now reasonably good standing back to the seamers, but remains a work in progress standing up to the stumps. So while the likes of James Foster would, undoubtedly, provide far sounder keeping in the short-to-medium term, this England side is being built with a view to the much longer term. And Buttler has the ability to be brilliant with the bat and decent with the gloves. Those who desire a return to the days of specialist keepers may as well wish for a revival of the quill.

Similarly, if you came in from a day's work and saw Ben Stokes' bowling figures, you might presume he had endured a shocking day or two in the field. And to some extent, you would be right. For Stokes enjoyed no luck at all and, in between seeing two catches go down off his bowling - both to the normally reliable Ian Bell - conceded five-an-over.

But Stokes also provided evidence, once again, of why he is going to be such a valuable player for England. He extracted life from a sluggish pitch, he found edges when his colleagues looked pretty innocuous and he provided an attacking option while also allowing the two senior bowlers time to recover between spells. In terms of performance, he had a decent day. In terms of results, he had a nightmare.

Mark Wood's figures were better. He showed he had the pace - all four England seamers reached 90mph, at times, but Wood was the quickest at 93.8 - the skill and the attitude to fulfil a role at this level. And if he squandered one wicket-taking chance by over-stepping against Martin Guptill on the first day, such things must be expected of a man playing just his 25th first-class match. He has not arrived as the finished article.

And then there is Gary Ballance. The Gary Ballance who recently became the joint-ninth fastest man in history to reach 1,000 Test runs. The Gary Ballance who has had two low scores in this Test but, in his last 10 Tests, has scored four centuries and five half-centuries in various situations of impending disaster for the team.

For while it has become the norm to explain away any success from England players, it is worth remembering that the side has at various times in the last year been 30 for 4, 62 for 6, 52 for 3, 34 for 3, 31 for 2, 72 for 4, 36 for 2, 57 for 5, 121 for 6 and 74 for 3. No runs should be taken for granted at this level and, while history may recall the Sri Lanka and India attacks as relatively modest, they were too good for England at Lord's and Leeds. Ballance deserves a little more credit for his first year in Test cricket than he is receiving.

He has had a tough game here. He has scored one run in two innings and received two very fine deliveries. But to suggest a 25-year-old who averages more than 55 in first-class cricket has a fatal flaw in his game on the basis of one game is the sort of hysteria that held England back in the 1980s and 90s. Ballance, like many before him, will face some hurdles on the journey but there is a huge amount there to build upon.

England's problem was that their senior bowlers did not fully utilise the first new ball - they bowled very well with the second one - and they came up against a New Zealand batting line-up that performed admirably. They fought back well on a third day on which they took eight wickets for 220 runs. It is just the start they had given New Zealand through the missed opportunities was crucial.

There is a febrile atmosphere in English cricket at present. An anger. An impatience. And while much of that is understandable, it is sometimes manifesting itself as misdirected hostility towards developing players who are going to need time to find their feet at this level.

Win, lose or draw in the next couple of days, there is something admirable germinating in the England side here. But it will require some careful nurturing and patience if it is to flower.