32nd over: England 145-4 (Bethell 62, Pope 5) Pope is beaten by a classic left-arm spinner’s’s delivery from Santner, which curves in and then straightens past the edge. Santner releases a bit of the pressure with a full toss that Pope whacks impatiently for four.

31st over: England 140-4 (Bethell 62, Pope 1) Bethell again demonstrates his limbo-dancing ability to avoid a short ball from O’Rourke that was moving inexorably towards his noggin. “Nice to be agile and 21,” says David Gower, which reminds me of this exchange with the great Andy Bull in 2010.

As an experienced bon viveur can you recommend a good hangover cure? Aha. Well, the best hangover cure in my experience was having to bat against the West Indies in the 1980s. The prospect of any one, or all four, of Holding, Marshall, Garner and Roberts coming at you at 90mph at 10am is enough to shake you out of any lethargy.

New Zealand have another LBW appeal turned down when Bethell falls over towards the off side. They weren’t really interesting, thinking it was missing leg, though the technology had it as umpire’s call.

Bethell is then struck on the body before softening his hands to ensure an edge falls short. He’s done remarkably well to survive this barrage. O’Rourke’s bowling in this game – to everyone, not just Bethell – will go into Test cricket folklore.

30th over: England 140-4 (Bethell 62, Pope 1) Santner concedes four byes with an errant delivery, though I didn’t see it properly. I’ll level with you, I’ve only got eyes for Will O’Rourke right now.

29th over: England 133-4 (Bethell 60, Pope 0) Pope gets in a tangle and is hit flush on the bicep by O’Rourke, whose performance in this game is starting to evoke the gold standard of fast-bowling brutality: Patrick Patterson at Sabina Park in 1985-86.

Pope is not out! It was umpire’s call so that’s a fair enough decision. David Gower makes the great point that Zak Crawley was given out to a ball that hit exactly the same part of the leg bail.

In other news, that ball was timed at 95mph.

NZ review for LBW against Pope! O’Rourke could be on a hat-trick for the second time in the match. Pope was whacked just above the knee roll by his first delivery, and this is going to be really close on both height and line.

WICKET! England 133-4 (Brook c Mitchell b O’Rourke 1)

28th over: England 133-3 (Bethell 60, Brook 1) Bethell, who had been stuck at the other end for a while, enjoys a rare over in which Will O’Rourke isn’t harassing him ball after ball. He hits Santner for successive boundaries, a stylish drive and a bread-and-butter cut, before lapping a full toss for a couple. It went past leg slip at catchable height but would have needed a miraculous catch.

27th over: England 122-3 (Bethell 50, Brook 0) O’Rourke is all over Bethell like a cheap cliche. He beats him three times in that over, two when Bethell was playing defensively and one when his beans started going and he tried a big drive.

O’Rourke has a few words; Bethell scratches his mark and smiles. He can play ever shot in the book and yet the best thing about him is his temperament.

26th over: England 122-3 (Bethell 50, Brook 0) Harry Brook gets off a king pair when his first delivery bounces down the leg side.

Root ends 2024 with 1556 runs at 55.57, the seventh highest total in a calendar year. The low of Rajkot, when he was out reverse ramping Jasprit Bumrah, turned out to be a blessing in very good disguise.

WICKET! England 122-3 (Root LBW b Santner 54; assist: O’Rourke)

New Zealand review for LBW against Root! This is out I think.

25th over: England 117-2 (Bethell 50, Root 49) O’Rourke completes the set by hammering Root in the business area, just as he did to Bethell a few overs ago. Root isn’t laughing this time. He rests on his haunches for 30 seconds or so before pulling a single to reach a 59-ball fifty. He’s still really struggling though and can’t even bring himself to raise the bat. Of all the bowlers in all the world, Will O’Rourke is not the one you want hitting you in the mirth-inducers.

That single also brought up a richly entertaining hundred partnership from 120 balls.

“This is proper gear from O’Rourke,” writes Scott Oliver, friend of the OBO and author of Wisden’s Book of the Year 2024. “150kph nip-backers and in-swingers from 6ft 6 is obviously not especially pleasant to face but I reckon, looking at his approach, that he can even get a little bit quicker. Don’t recall many out-and-out pace bowlers of his height who run in as hard (and and as smooth) as this. Very impressive.”

I can’t remember the last time Root looked as hurried as he has today. Even when Bumrah had him on toast for a while, he wasn’t inducing anywhere near as many false strokes as this.

24th over: England 117-2 (Bethell 50, Root 49) Root, the master sweeper, fetches Santner behind square for successive boundaries. Another sweep for three takes him to 1920 Test runs against New Zealand, a new world record. He usurps another rascally genius, Javed Miandad. Here’s the full list.

23rd over: England 106-2 (Bethell 50, Root 38) A beautiful short ball from O’Rourke is well avoided by Bethell, swaying back like Robin Smith in his pomp. Bethell, stuck on the crease, is beaten by the next ball, eliciting a wry half-smile from O’Rourke. Did Gus Fraser ever do that?

It’s just dawned on me that O’Rourke v Bethell could provide all kinds of entertainment in the next 10 years, especially when Bethell feels more confident about giving some back.

Time for drinks.

22nd over: England 106-2 (Bethell 50, Root 38) Bethell thick edges Santner for a single to reach his third Test fifty, this one from 63 balls. It’s been a mixture of stunning strokes and desperate survival, especially against O’Rourke.

Root whacks a boundary through the covers to end the over. High-octane stuff, this.

“I read that Mark Richardson is commentating,” says Tom Van der Gucht. “Is that the same player who used to challenge the slowest member of their opponents to a race at the end of a Test series then take them on in a beige lycra outfit? I seem to remember him losing to Ashley Giles back in 2004 but beating Darren Lehmann around the same time.”

You betcha. Look at his happy little face! Makes me want to treat myself to some beige lycra for Christmas.

21st over: England 100-2 (Bethell 49, Root 33) O’Rourke hits Bethell right in the whoopsie daisies, which means a quick timeout while he gets his breath back and Joe Root has a little snigger. Bethell is really struggling against O’Rourke – no shame in that – and is beaten twice outside off stump. A few New Zealand players enquired for caught behind the second time but Tom Latham didn’t take matters upstairs.

20th over: England 98-2 (Bethell 47, Root 33) Mitch Santner, the white-ball specialist who has suddenly become world cricket’s in-form red-ball spinner, comes into the attack for the first time in the innings. There’s plenty of excitement when Bethell tries to reverse sweep his second ball, gets in a tangle and is hit on the pad. The ball bounces fractionally short of slip, though on reflection I don’t think it brushed bat or glove.

Edit: replays show it did kiss the glove on the way up, though the ball still landed just short of slip.

19th over: England 97-2 (Bethell 46, Root 33) O’Rourke is back on in place of Henry. Root pulls for four, a pretty good shot it not completely out of the middle, before bottom-edging a cut past the stumps for another boundary.

Rare is the bowler who puts Joe Root on a hot tin roof but that’s exactly what O’Rourke is doing. He goes past the edge, a clever piece of bowling from wider on the crease, then induces another false stroke with a shortish delivery that follows Root. He was cramped for room and could only cut the ball into the ground and up to first slip. Terrific over.

“Evening,” says Tom Van der Gucht. “I’ve unfortunately left it a little late to start my Christmas viewing traditions and have had to put together a spreadsheet that quantities how I’m going to squeeze in Father Ted, The Royle Family, BBC Christmas Ghost Stories, Gremlins, the Long Kiss Goodnight, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The League of Gentlemen, Inside number 9, The Green Knight, The Likely Lads, Peep Show and many more… On the plus side, I’ll be putting shift in tonight watching Oh Whistle My Lad and A A Warning to the Curious whilst following the Test on my phone – win win, I suppose.”

Win win my ars- well, never mind.

18th over: England 89-2 (Bethell 46, Root 25) Bethell pulls Southee majestically through midwicket for four. Southee doesn’t really have the pace trouble Bethell with the short ball, who is now four away for his third Test fifty.

17th over: England 85-2 (Bethell 42, Root 25) Henry is okay to continue despite ripping a load of skin off his right arm. Root drives expertly for four, then fiddles an edge well short of the cordon. The bounce troubled him again, and with that in mind it’s a bit surprising O’Rourke has only bowled three overs so far.

Mind you, Henry is bowling very well and ends another good over with an LBW shout against Root. Outside the line, probably; inside edge, definitely.

16th over: England 79-2 (Bethell 41, Root 20) Root walks across to flick Southee very fine for two. Good job he did as he’d otherwise have been the subject of a huge LBW shout. The sprawling Henry did well to save the boundary but grazed the skin on his right arm in the process. That looks nasty.

And this isn’t great either: Root has been dropped by Latham at second slip! It was a fairly straightforward two-handed chance to his left after Root was surprised by a bit of extra bounce. “They’ve got the dropsies again!” says Mark Richardson on commentary.

15th over: England 76-2 (Bethell 41, Root 17) Seeya Sachin! Bethell swivel-pulls Henry for six to bring up the fifty partnership. He didn’t fully middle it, and there were loud cries of ‘catch’, but it had enough to clear the short boundary.

Henry fancies his chances, though, and rams in a couple more short balls. Bethell shapes to pull the first before aborting the shot, an exceedingly wise move. The second clears Blundell and runs away for four more byes.

“Kipling’s If adorns the entrance to the centre court at Wimbledon,” writes Krishnamoorthy V. “‘Do not go gently into the night’ must be being lugged around with this English team. A draw may be a win to the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Geoff Boycott but not to this team.”

Their fear and loathing of the draw is hilarious. There’s been only one in the 35 Tests they’ve played since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over. It took literally two days of Manchester’s finest rain to put a D on the table alongside all the Ws and Ls.

14th over: England 63-2 (Bethell 34, Root 16) Tim Southee replaces Will O’Rourke and is immediately set upon by Bethell. He pulls the first ball over mid-on for four, a mishit stroke that teased the fielder, then goes down on one knee to lace a glorious drive past extra cover. That’s about as good as it gets.

It’s important we don’t get carried away with Bethell. But by heaven it’s hard. Put it this way: Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 15,921 Test runs is under serious threat from one of the England batters out in the middle and it ain’t Joe Root.

13th over: England 54-2 (Bethell 25, Root 16) Bethell tells Matt Henry where to stick his subtle questions by running down the track to smack a drive back over his head for four. The intent was rustic but the shot was played with a smooth elegance.

12th over: England 49-2 (Bethell 20, Root 16) O’Rourke is again hitting 90mph, which turns him from a very awkward bowler into a mildly terrifying one. Even Root is struggling to find the middle of the bat and almost falls when a gloved pull beats the diving Blundell and goes for four.

Meanwhile, this email is spot on. “There’s something about Will O’Rourke’s put-upon demeanour that reminds me of Angus Fraser,” writes Matt Emerson. “Even when he was on a hat-trick he looked like someone had stolen his lunch money. He’s a bit quicker than the great man, mind…”

He’s Fraser x Harmison (2004 version) isn’t he? He has a great hangdog expression as he walks back to his mark.

11th over: England 45-2 (Bethell 20, Root 12) There’s more than one way to interrogate a batter. In the first innings Will O’Rourke pinned Bethell to the wall by the throat until he got the confession he wanted; this morning Matt Henry is using more subtle methods. Bethell is beaten, hit by a nipbacker and then extremely fortunate to see an inside edge flash past the stumps for four.

Weird as it sounds, it’s great to see Bethell struggling to survive. He’ll learn so much more from this innings than the breezy strokefests in the second innings of the first two Tests.

10th over: England 41-2 (Bethell 16, Root 12) Bloody hell that’s a shot and a half. O’Rourke spears in a yorker to Root, pretty much exactly where he wanted it to pitch. Root not only keeps it out but times it whence it came for four.

A bouncer explodes past the leaping Latham Blundell for four byes; the over ends with a vague appeal for a catch down the leg side.

9th over: England 33-2 (Bethell 16, Root 8) Bethell half steers, half edges Henry for four. He softened his hands nicely, as he has throughout the series with deliveries like that. The follow-up ball is a beauty that straightens off the seam to hit Bethell on the back leg. Henry pleads for LBW but it was too high. Pitched fractionally outside leg as well.

What a series Bethell has had. I don’t mean his output, good though it has been, so much as his development; the challenge of batting No3 against this New Zealand on these pitches – and in so many different match situations – is worth about two years of education in county cricket. There may be some short-term pain in the next 12 months, as there was with Joe Root in 2013-14, but he’s surely going to score runs in industrial quantities across all formats.

8th over: England 25-2 (Bethell 9, Root 7) Tim Southee will have to wait his turn. Will O’Rourke, who bowled one nasty over to Bethell last night, picks up where he left off. As a neutral I’m childishly excited about what O’Rourke could achieve in the next decade, so goodness knows how the New Zealand fans feel. I guess the precedent of Kyle Jamieson invites a degree of caution.

Root drives deliberately through backward point for four, either side of awkward defensive shots to repel sharp nipbackers.

7th over: England 21-2 (Bethell 9, Root 3) Joe Root cuts Mat Henry’s first ball for a couple to get off the mark, then squirts a drive only just short of point.

Root has scored 1506 runs in 2024, which puts him eighth on the all-time list. He’s also third after the annus mirabihorribilis in 2021, when Root played like a God and his team kept losing.

Henry ends a good first over by angling one past Bethell’s defensive push from over the wicket.

The players stroll into the Hamilton sunshine, with all eyes on Tim Southee. It’s a gorgeous day, the kind you’d want if you’re going to chase 658.

The latest on Ben Stokes, from ECB Towers

Ben will be further assessed at the end of the Test. If required, he is expected to bat in England’s second innings

Play will start half an hour early, at 9.30pm BST, to make up some of yesterday’s lost time. That extra half hour could be crucial for New Zealand as they push to take these last eight wickets inside two days.

Preamble