Kyle Jamieson marks latest injury return with five-wicket bag in first test versus England

Friday, 5 June 2026

Kyle Jamieson’s first ball after 847 days away from test cricket was not a good one.

A full-toss outside the off-stump of left-handed opener Emilio Gay allowed the test debutant to get off the mark with the first ball he faced at Lord’s on Thursday night (NZ time).

But matters rapidly improved for Jamieson, who dismissed Gay soon after and ended England’s innings with figures of 5-62 from 14 overs.

However, Ollie Robinson - in his first test for England since February 2024 - took three wickets in four balls in his first over of the first test to reduce the visitors to 3-2, with NZ eventually reaching stumps at 61-6.

Jamieson made his New Zealand test debut against India at the Basin Reserve in February 2020, and quickly became a red-ball sensation, racing to 50 test wickets in just nine appearances - which included a man-of-the-match display as the Black Caps won the inaugural World Test Championship over India in Southampton.

But a lower back stress fracture during the 2022 test series in England kept him out of the format for 17 months. Three tests after his return following surgery, the fracture reopened at one of the screws that had been inserted into his vertebrae.

'When you work your butt off and it happens again, you're staring down the barrel of, like, 'What would I do different?',” Jamieson said.

“But through the process of outsourcing my rehab, uncovering what went wrong, it gave me a lot of confidence that it wasn't really me that was the issue with why I was missing time out of the game.

'There was a whole bunch of reasons why [the injury] occurred, and if I fixed that, I was reasonably confident that I'd at least be able to play some form of cricket. And then as you keep going and you get a few reps under your belt, the red-ball Everest, in terms of the physical nature of it, was very much a possibility.'

His next return to international cricket came via white-ball games, and Jamieson then prepared for his latest stint at test cricket when rarely called upon by his Delhi Capitals team in the Indian Premier League.

“I claimed to the boys at the back end that I was the best net bowler in the IPL, with how many overs I bowled,” Jamieson said.

“It was really lucky. Delhi were really good. I was able to go to other grounds and bowl overs in the morning, have a break, do some S&C [strength and conditioning], come back, bowl in the evening.

“I was reasonably far away from playing, so I didn't have to worry about preparing for games as such, and could use every training opportunity we had to get [my workloads] up. It certainly felt a little bit easier today bowling in those conditions than running in trying to bowl 15 sets in 45 degrees, so [I'm] thankful for that.”

The 2.03m seamer also had England’s topscorer Harry Brook dropped from a simple chance by Rachin Ravindra at deep square leg, before claiming his sixth five-wicket test haul, and his first in nearly five years.

Will O’Rourke also marked his return to test cricket from a back stress fracture - suffered mid-2025 against Zimbabwe - with 2-25 from 11 impressive overs.

Now playing his 20th test, Jamieson has captured 85 wickets at a stellar average of 19.30.

Not that he had much chance to reflect - his ice bath was cut short as Black Caps wickets fell at an alarming pace before Glenn Phillips (31 not out) and Nathan Smith (6no) ensured he wouldn’t have to bat on day one.

First test, Lord’s: England 140 all out in 39.4 overs (Harry Brook 56; Kyle Jamieson 5-62, Nathan Smith 3-38) vs New Zealand 61-6 (Glenn Phillips 31 not out; Ollie Robinson 4-10).