Caddick four away from 200 and will be hunting tomorrow
Lynn McConnell - 24 March 2002
If England fast-medium bowler Andy Caddick had come into the National Bank Series with as many wickets as he thought he had he would already be a member of the 200 Club.
His six wicket haul for 59 runs today, as New Zealand crumbled to be all out for 218, 62 runs behind England, took him to 196 Test wickets.
Ahead of him on the all-time England list are: Ian Botham 383, Bob Willis 325, Fred Trueman 307, Derek Underwood 297, Brian Statham 252, Alec Bedser 236, Darren Gough 228 and John Snow 202.
"I thought I had 186 before this Test started," he said.
"It sort of knocked me back when I had only 181. Four wickets hopefully during the [remainder of the] series I will be very happy to get. It will be a nice little feeling to have 200 under the belt," he said.
"It was very satisfying, It has been a good day for England, all told, I think the boys have done quite well.
"If you manage to play 50-odd Tests and get 200 wickets then you are in a club, there are a lot of other bowlers who are just as good if not better than me who have got a long ways to go to get there. Once they get into that club I'm sure they will have the same feelings as I will.
"I've been looking forward to it in this series. If there was one thing I wanted to do it was to do it here," he said.
His bowling, along with that of Ashley Giles' four for 102, put England in a very strong position going into the last day of the Test and a New Zealand side batting like it did today will struggle to hold England out.
Caddick was able to get the ball to reverse swing, something that he does often in county cricket but rarely in Test matches as the preferred exponents are Craig White and Gough.
But, he said, it was nice to be able to show that he had another string to his bow.
The day itself was always going to be a struggle after Ben Hollioake's death yesterday and the tribute paid to him with a minute's silence before play started today.
"It was very difficult, there is a lot of emotion in that dressing at the moment. There's been a few tears. It's been a very hard day, yesterday was very hard but today I think it has hit home a bit. It was hard work this morning.
"The minute's silence rocked the boys a little bit. Unfortunately, cricket doesn't stop, the game continues. Once we just started concentrating on the cricket the game went forward. But you have still got to be professional.
"We are not judged by what's been happening off the field unfortunately, we are judged by what happens on the field."
The players did want to do well in the match and as professional cricketers that was what they should do, he said.
"Nine times out of 10 you continue to do what you've been doing before, but there are moments when you are out in the field that you sit back and wonder what could have been."
© CricInfo
Teams
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England,
New Zealand.
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Players/Umpires
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Andy Caddick,
Ian Botham,
Bob Willis,
Fred Trueman,
Derek Underwood,
Brian Statham,
Alec Bedser,
Darren Gough,
John Snow,
Ashley Giles,
Craig White,
Ben Hollioake.
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Tours
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England in New Zealand
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The views expressed on this page do not necessarily
reflect those of the England and Wales Cricket Board
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