England will try to give Ben Stokes a "perfect send-off" from his Test career by chasing down a fourth-innings target of 373 on the final day, Joe Root said on Sunday night. They made life hard for themselves by losing four early wickets in 15 madcap overs of ultra-attacking batting, but both Root and Stokes defended their approach as a "tactical decision" to "cause chaos".
Stokes promoted himself to open the batting for only the third time in Tests and charged his first ball before missing a reverse-sweep off his second. He launched two sixes, belting Zak Foulkes back over his head and slog-sweeping Nathan Smith, but fell for 30 off 20 balls when swiping Foulkes to mid-on in the eighth over of England's run chase.
When Jacob Bethell was pinned lbw four balls later playing no shot, Harry Brook walked in at No. 4 - ahead of Root - and hit the first ball he faced over square leg for six. He kept on swinging, and picked out long leg for 21 off nine balls; even Root and the demoted Emilio Gay continued to play shots, trading a reverse-ramp for a reverse-sweep respectively.
It was an exhilarating but totally surreal passage of play, and New Zealand will return on the fifth day needing only six more wickets to secure a famous 2-1 series win. Rachin Ravindra, who made 94 in New Zealand's second innings, said that they were thrilled with the situation. "To have four wickets at the close is something we would have taken, for sure," he said. "The boys bowled brilliantly."
But Stokes and Root both insisted that England's decision to tee off had worked more or less as intended. They both argued that it was part of a tactical plan to maximise their run-scoring opportunities against the hard, new ball in the knowledge that variable bounce on a deteriorating surface meant there was no point hanging around.
"It had been something we'd spoken about tactically because obviously we'd seen how the wicket deteriorated, and how hard the new ball was [to face]," Stokes told Sky Sports. "We just didn't want to allow the opening bowlers to settle. I just wanted to go out there and literally cause as much chaos as possible.
"I played the two balls out in my head first off: I was running down the wicket, then reverse-sweep. I wouldn't have been reverse-sweeping Will O'Rourke. [I wanted to] cause a bit of chaos.
"As the Test match has played out, the new ball is the hardest to score off, but also poses the biggest threat in terms of taking a wicket, so it was a tactical decision. I know we're four down, but we've knocked a heavy chunk off this total already and we have two very good players out in the middle.
"We would have loved to have come in one or two down, but for tactical reasons we wanted to cause a bit of chaos and then turn up tomorrow and see where we are. We've knocked a good chunk off this total. It's pretty obvious that this wicket is getting harder and harder to score on."
Root added: "Throughout this game, the hardest time to bat - apart from day one - has been when the ball is brand new. It's been when there's been the most ridiculous movement, and also, once that ball gets soft, it's almost been quite tricky to hit through the field.
"To try and get ahead of that, to make a big dent in it tonight, was very much a tactical decision, and a big reason why we went the way that we did. It's slightly disappointing that we find ourselves four down, but we've managed to put a big dent in it with that new ball, we've managed to soften it a little bit, and hopefully take a few demons out of the surface.
"It did cause chaos. It's not very often, on what looks like a result pitch, that you have no slips in the third over or whatever, and everyone is scattered on the boundary. But again, in true Ben fashion, [he is] looking at how we can win this game and what it's going to take to get us there.
"I don't think many people would have been brave enough to put us in a position where we're still very much in the game and have taken a little bit of the danger out of it."
Root reached the close 9 not out and England's chances of pulling off an unlikely win rely almost entirely on him batting into Monday's afternoon session. "There's a lot of hard work still to be done… [to] make sure that we give ourselves the best possible chance of finishing the series on a high, winning it, and that would be the perfect send-off," he said.
Stokes did pay credit to both Ravindra and centurion Daryl Mitchell, who ground England down with his unbeaten, 241-ball hundred. "The way Rachin and Daryl played today was gutsy and courageous," he said. "The way they stuck in there and played the way they thought was the best way for them to get ahead of the game… You have to hold your hands up, and say well done."