England vs New Zealand: Ollie Robinson's road to redemption has perfect start at Lord's

Paul Farbrace has a gag about how Ollie Robinson came to be Sussex captain. Farbrace, the Sussex head coach, realised he had not got his step-son a decent Christmas present, so offered him the county captaincy instead. It's a nice line. The truth is that Sussex wanted to get the absolute best out of their champion bowler and reasoned it would come through more responsibility. Around the same time, England were getting their quadrennial shellacking in Australia. Among the myriad of English plans to fail down under was the idea of hitting the Aussies with high pace and hostility. And so Robinson and England were once again set on convergent paths, culminating in his comeback for the ages on day one of the first Test against New Zealand. With three wickets in his first over in an England shirt for more than two years, Robinson added his own moment of history to a Lord's ground celebrating its 150th Test. He reannounced himself as an international bowler, gave life to England's post-Ashes rebuild and quite possibly provided precious breathing space to the management that once discarded him. It had been 829 days since Robinson last played for England and 1,069 since he was last able to