Mark Chapman made 37 but couldn’t quite take New Zealand home © Getty Images
New Zealand 223 (Santner 63*, Guptill 50) v England
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
After defeat in Hamilton, England talked about being sharper in the field. They delivered in some style in Mount Maunganui barely putting a foot wrong as they restricted New Zealand a seemingly under-par 223 although Mitchell Santner’s maiden ODI fifty gave them something to defend.
Chris Woakes set the tone with the ball, claiming two early wickets, while Jason Roy snaffled two fine catches – one in the deep then one inside the ring – and sharp ground-fielding conjured four run-outs, including the in-form Ross Taylor and dangerous Colin de Grandhomme. England’s spinners, Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali, bowled their combined 20 overs for 65 runs to provide Eoin Morgan with excellent control.
However, just as the innings was threatening to wither away completely Santner backed up his matchwinner effort in Hamilton with a 45-ball half-century. He found an able partner in the recalled Lockie Ferguson as the No. 10 faced 38 deliveries to help forge a ninth-wicket stand of 69.
New Zealand were forced to go in without their captain Kane Williamson who was suffering a hamstring strain, meaning a first New Zealand ODI cap for Mark Chapman and the captaincy was handed to Tim Southee. England were unchanged and this time Morgan was able to send New Zealand in, allowing the team to revert to their preferred ODI method of chasing. This was Bay Oval’s first day-night ODI.
The start of New Zealand’s innings was very similar to their chase in Hamilton when Colin Munro edged Woakes’ third delivery attempting another expansive drive having not given himself the chance to get his eye in. It meant any early walk to the middle for Chapman, who linked up with the squad yesterday, but it was a brief stay when he top-edged Woakes into the leg side where David Willey took a well-judged catch over his shoulder.
Taylor was required to rebuild the innings three days ago and started to repair some of the early damage again alongside Guptill although it was slow going. The first 10 overs brought 34 runs and the opening spells of Woakes and Willey were backed up by Rashid who went for just four in his first three overs.
The partial recovery was halted by an outstanding piece of work from Willey at backward as he intercepted Taylor’s cut shot, collected the ball and threw to Jos Buttler who gathered cleanly low by the stumps to find Taylor well short.
Poor deliveries were rare – there was one on the pads by Tom Curran to Guptill and Rashid occasionally dropped short, but there was not much of a release for New Zealand. Guptill’s fifty came off a sedate 84 balls, his third-slowest in ODIs, but he fell three deliveries later when Roy held the first of his excellent catches, a skimming low take at deep midwicket as Guptill tried to put Moeen onto the grass banks.
Roy wasn’t finished there, in the next over diving full-length to his right at backward to pluck Henry Nicholls’ square cut out of the air when he tried to take advantage of width offered by Ben Stokes. New Zealand were five down and still short of three figures. Moeen, who found nice drift on a stiff breeze, claimed his second when Tom Latham couldn’t keep a cut shot down and found short third man.
New Zealand needed de Grandhomme and Santner to take the innings very deep – perhaps the last five overs – before trying to cut loose, but just as de Grandhomme was building a promising base he chanced a second run to Jonny Bairstow’s arm in the deep and lost the race. And even when England fumbled they recovered as Santner sold Southee short after Stokes initially didn’t gather the ball cleanly at midwicket.
Santner did his best to nurse the innings through its duration. England blotted their fielding copybook when Roy couldn’t gather the ball at midwicket – a decent throw would have found Ferguson short. England would have expected to wrap up the innings well within the overs, but New Zealand showed their steel.
Ferguson brought up the fifty stand with a pulled six and Santner raised his half-century with another as Curran went for 19 in the 48th over. A neat catch by Rashid at mid-off ended the stand to give Stokes his second wicket as he was again given two four-over spells. Fittingly, the innings was rounded off by Stokes’ strong throw from the deep finding Trent Boult inches short.
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo