Kevin Pietersen Looks On The 'Bright Side' Of England Batting Collapse Against New Zealand In First Test

Former England batter Kevin Pietersen has insisted he sees a lot of good stuff in the batting line-up despite the hosts collapsing their way to 141 all out in the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's.

After bowling out New Zealand for 132, England had an opening stand of 59 before going to 92/3 and then collapsing to 141 all out, taking a slender nine-run lead.

"The batting just wasn't good enough. The bowling was very good; James Anderson coming back into the fold and getting the lines and lengths right, those pushes and prods and balls only need to move that amount of distance and you could find yourself in all sorts of strifes, which they did yesterday," said Pietersen on Sky Sports about his observations of day one.

Talking about England's batting succumbing to familiar batting implosion under captaincy of Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum, Pietersen chose to see the brighter side of things.

"I see a lot of good stuff there. You look at it and you do see a lot of good stuff. But I think it's a confidence play now. When you're losing Test matches as often as these batters are losing, no matter how much you talk about a reset, restructuring and a new start under Ben Stokes, these guys like Lees, Crawley, Pope will all know how much pressure they're under."

"It's so much easier to talk than to be out there in the middle. These guys will know the pressure they are under. But I do still see players who can perform and we see glimpses of it. There is something there."

But former England batters Alastair Cook and Michael Vaughan were critical of England's collapse. "The frustrating thing for me as an England supporter is that every time this batting line-up is put under pressure they cannot withstand it. They weren't even under that much pressure yesterday, they had done all the hard work getting to 59-0."

"New Zealand got the wicket of Crawley, stopped England scoring. That was the time to soak up the pressure. Pope nearly did that but once he was out they lost the next five wickets so quickly, and that's the bit that irritates me," said Cook on BBC Test Match Special.

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"It was just not good enough yesterday. You can make all the excuses you like but this is the same group of players. And my worry is if you are part of that group you cannot change. It is like a disease in the dressing room you can't get rid of. When you lose a wicket there is a feeling another one will soon follow. Because collapses like yesterday have come out of nowhere," added Vaughan.