New Zealand 438 and 180 for 4 (Mitchell 47*, Blundell 0*) lead England 354 by 264 runs
New Zealand strengthened their grip on the deciding Test of the series at Trent Bridge, despite the dismissal of Rachin Ravindra for 94 five minutes before the lunch break. Until that point, Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell had weathered everything that England - and an increasingly up-and-down pitch - could throw at them during the morning session on day four.
The fourth-wicket pair only added 60 runs across 23.4 overs, as England's attack plugged away manfully, but it was enough to take their partnership into three figures and push New Zealand closer to a defendable score. That batting fourth is likely to be challenging was only highlighted when Ben Stokes turned belatedly to spin and Shoaib Bashir trapped Ravindra lbw going back to one that kept low with his fourth ball.
The closest they came to being separated before that was when Mitchell was given out lbw in the second over of the morning, off the bowling of Jofra Archer. Ball-tracking showed it would have cleared middle stump, however, and Rod Tucker had to overturn his decision - to the delight of Mitchell, who was animated in celebrating his reprieve.
He had less to smile about as the first hour wore on, repeatedly taking blows on the hands and body, with Stokes in particular managing to exploit the surface's variable bounce. Mitchell managed six runs in the first 55 minutes of the day, before edging Josh Tongue through a vacant second slip for four, and then went scoreless for more than half an hour as lunch approached.
If England were to tip a see-sawing contest back their way, they needed early wickets. But despite Stokes finding movement during an eight-over opening spell that returned figures of 8-1-14-0 and Archer winning a decision (overturned on review) with his second delivery, the efforts of the four-man seam attack were fruitless.
Mitchell bore the brunt of it, with Stokes pinging him on the forearm, and at least two other balls rapping him painful blows on the gloves. When one delivery took off past the outside edge, Jamie Smith, standing up to the stumps through large parts of the session, copped a blow on the grille of his helmet.
Ravindra was more fluent, pulled Stokes firmly through midwicket and then whipping Archer off his pads for four more. New Zealand added 26 in the first hour, and then another 34 in the second; Ravindra moving into the 90s with a thick edge through third and then a clip off the pads in the space of two balls, but was unable to convert what would have been his sixth Test hundred.
