 England and New Zealand just finished a match that is historic. It's the fourth time this has ever happened in the vast history of Test Cricket. It's wild and fun and there's a lot of thought processes for baseball fans I think are really interesting. Like, oh wait, that's something that they do because we play with innings and home and away and top of the inning and bottom and we don't do that stuff. So I'm just gonna use baseball terms for the whole video. If you're a cricket fan, I apologize but it's easier for people that have no idea what this is. You can use baseball terms. Also, if you're a cricket fan, there's so much nuance and context and really fun stuff like beneath the layers that I'm just gonna leave out to make it a little easier to understand. So this video is brought to you by Drapkings. I appreciate you Drapkings. Thank you for sponsoring. The general most boiled down, basic, basic gameplay, your concept of Test Cricket is, from a baseball perspective, two inning games. Two innings, but in the inning, the entire batting order bats, all 10 batters and they hit until they get out. And doubles are worth four runs and home runs are worth six runs but you can still get singles and doubles and triples and four runs and even five runs by hitting it and then running the bases. So think of that, okay? The entire lineup hits, they hit until they get out. Doubles are worth four, home runs are worth six and you just get as many runs as you can. Runs are common, outs are rare. In baseball, outs are common, runs are rare. Two innings. So the fielding team has to get all 10 batters out before they switch sides. They split this up over the course of five days if it goes that long. So that's why people are like, one game lasts five days, yeah, in this version but it's kind of like how a five game series last five days, there's ebbs and flows. There's all this stuff that's going on. England is playing unbelievable cricket right now. They're attacking the ball. They're trying to score runs on every single ball because unlike baseball, foul balls are nothing and there's not really strikes. So you could foul it off or you could just let a ball go and stay at bat forever. They have to get you out by hitting the wicket which is the three stomps. You get caught out or you try to run and they throw you out like running bases. So what's going on in this match is England, they hit first because they're the away team. So it's in New Zealand, they're the away team. So in the top of the first inning, England scores 435 runs. It's a lot of runs. That's where baseball fans are like, what my brain, what? And the best part is they didn't get all their outs. They had two more outs to go but the game has to end at the end of five days. Otherwise it's a draw. So sometimes a strategy is like, let's just not score runs but also not get out and drag this on. And if New Zealand has no way of coming back to win, maybe they just try to drag it out and play for the draw. Americans fans just blew their brains out. Play for the tie. What is this soccer? Anyway, so they have 435 runs and only eight outs and they say, we declare, we don't give a shit. That's enough for us. We're tired and we don't think you're gonna beat that. So you're good. You don't have to get the next two outs. We'll just go have some tea, come back out and we'll pitch to you and get you out. So they do that. It's kind of like just bullying them from up top. Keeping them momentum. Cause at the end of the batting order are the pitchers and they aren't good hitters. Now granted, it's better than baseball where some pitchers like really can't hit. They can hold their own but maybe those outs come really easily and then there's some momentum shift for New Zealand cause they ended it by getting their outs. Well no, we declare, we're done. We got four, you're out. Joe Root just hit 150 runs and we call it. So New Zealand comes up and they score one run so now they're only down by 434 and then they get out. They're opening batsmen gets out. They go one run, one out and then a little bit later they get, they're at seven runs and then they get their second outs, awful start. It's just brutal. They end up the bottom of the first. New Zealand scores 209 runs which gives England a 226 run lead after the first inning. This is where the thought exercise for baseball fans gets really fun. They have something called a follow on. Basically, England is like, we're up by 200 and we don't wanna have to go hit again, score another 400 runs, waste everyone's time and then get you out. Let's just switch it. We get home field now, you guys follow on. You just hit, follow yourselves. Hit again, see if you can beat us because if you can't even score 226 runs then there's no point in us hitting again. Kind of a wild concept when I first found out about this, I'm like, what? When the Yankees at Mariana Rivera, I always was like, Yankees should just forfeit the top of the ninth, who cares? Just go to the bottom of the ninth, bring Mowen and end the game. Kind of like that. What does New Zealand do? Well, instead of going seven for two with their opening batsmen this time, they put up 149 runs before making a single out. So New Zealand's showing some fight but now it's a race because they gotta score a lot of runs to get a big enough lead but also have to leave enough time to bowl England out when they get up. So when New Zealand finally gets out and now the top of the second inning, they have scored 483 runs in the second inning. So they lead by 257 runs. Well, England put up 435 and on only eight outs, they should probably be able to score 257 on 10 outs and that's where the fun begins. I'm gonna skip all the way ahead to the last half hour of this match because every ball was incredibly intense. I hope you followed that. I know I did it really quickly. But just the concept of declaring and follow on is so bully-ish. I love it. And I think they play it off as a gentlemanly thing, like it's a gentleman sport. I don't know, there's no way. I mean, it's just, it's so much like you're wasting our time. So we'll just not even try and give you the next two outs. We'll spot you the two outs and you're wasting our time. We don't even think we need to hit again. And if we do, just let us know how many we need to beat you. Because we don't wanna go put up 800 runs and then you guys only scored 200 again. It's so fucked up. So only three teams in the history of Test Cricket have ever been told to follow on and then come back and won the match. And, spoiler, that's what you're about to see. So I'm gonna start the video at the end here. This is how you read the scoreboard. Up top, you have 248 runs. Disregard that number because you have to do the math anyway. That's what England is scoring in the second inning. They already put up to 435 earlier. The eight at the end, that's how many outs. So they have two left. They need 10 runs to win. Nine to tie. And the two batters that are up are folks. He's got 32 runs off of 49 balls and Leech, who has not scored a run and faced 19 balls. Now Leech is a pitcher. So he doesn't bring the bat. He doesn't have a lot of offense. Folks is a hitter. So their strategy is to keep folks at bat and let him get some doubles or home runs. And that's all. So they could run for one right there, but they don't wanna change who's hitting because then if Leech gets out, which he's more likely to, then they only have one left and something flukey could happen. So they got all these chances right here to just be pepper and singles and keep the line moving and they don't take them, which I'm sure they're gonna regret. But that's the strategy. New Zealand is playing the outfield way out. Well, they finally changed. On that last hit, they did run for a single. So now it's nine to win. And now look at New Zealand. Instead of playing the outfield and covering the doubles and the home runs, the fours and the sixes, if it hits the boundary or goes over the boundary, I'm using baseball terms. They bring the infield in because they wanna get this guy's wicket. They wanna get him out because then they're one away from winning the thing. So instead of the outfield being out, they shift everyone in and they really get really in there. They try to smother them and the bowler tries to just go hard. They think they might have one here. They think they might have one here. He goes, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's review it. Why not? At this point, and did it hit his bat? No, it hit Leech in the chest. So he's not out. Now folks is on strike again. And again, he's hitting the ball to the outfield but they're just not taking those as singles right there. They could run there and they could get it but they don't wanna risk putting the bowler, the pitcher up. So finally they take one here and when they do, they say, let's go for two, let's go for two, let's go for two. Perfect throw. I mean, it hits the wickets dead on. Look at that. From out there, but he was safe. So they go for two, again, to keep folks, the batsman on strike. And then he hits that one in the air. Wagner, this guy who's gonna be a hero later, he catches it and oh no, now they have that ninth out and it's the batsman. So he's pretty pissed cause now he's left his two pitchers in bad shape. And Southie's smiling but I think he's a little bit like, well, are we really gonna do this though? But now they got two, they got two bowlers, pitchers up. Anderson and Leech, both have scored zero runs. One of them's got a score runs and now you see that New Zealand kinda has, you know, the three infielders in and then some out because they really need to preserve this. Seven runs and they lose. And they're just trying to bust them up and now they switch and these guys are just trying to survive and mistakenly get some runs. Oh, there's a big swing, is it gonna be caught? It drops and the keeper, it was like the catcher, he kinda gives up on this one and Wagner, the bowler's like, I don't know man, I think he maybe could have got it. But he thinks that he maybe has help so he pulls off it, it falls in no man's land. So now it's six to win and he swings big. Anderson does, he's one of the best bowlers in cricket, he swings big so now it's two to win because that was a double, four runs. So one run ties it, two wins it. If that gets past him, maybe that's one to tie it but he made a diving stop to keep them still but every single ball just had so much drama and pressure so that's a nice stop to keep it there. Now we're getting nervous in the crowd, we're getting very nervous. Okay, two to win, here we go and edge them, catches them and New Zealand wins. Historic, I mean down to the last, that last ball I think the odd still would have been like England's gonna win and they are ecstatic, the fans in the crowd look at this guy, he go catch that. Yes, he's all excited, Wagner screaming. Anderson's just sad. I like this woman jumping up and down, just so excited and these guys, I think the guy on the right is a New Zealand fan. The guy on the left is a English, is an England fan because one's excited, one goes hat on the head and then he just deflates. Let's watch him deflate again. Oh, got it, oh. And then I do think this old man fell asleep. I do think sadly he missed that. These three friends wanna hug the guy in the outside, it's like I wanna be part of that, come closer and they're like yeah get in here, get in here. This guy down there, his shirt doesn't fit great but he wants to celebrate, kind of ass hearted. Look at these guys, they're really excited. And then I think we have an English couple here that's just like oh no, well, it was a fun first two days. And yeah, this is every other time it happened in history. We're going back to 1894, 1981, 2000 and then 2023 history. In this video is brought to you by DraftKings. Thank you DraftKings for sponsoring the video. I appreciate you very much, DraftKings.