Looking from a downtown Auckland hotel balcony at Skytower, a sort of Post Office tower with attitude, it has been tempting to view the brave souls who strap into a harness and fling themselves 630ft to the ground for the fun of it as a metaphor for the England team on this tour: the heights of the Twenty20 triumph followed by free-fall in Wellington and Hamilton. There the metaphor ends: Skytower offers "base-jumping with wires" and no rebound, and in hitting close to rock bottom and bouncing back up again as they managed under Eden Park's lights, England are more bungee than base.
It was a well-deserved victory from a side that bandied harsh words in the week. Bowlers bowled with vigour and aggression while still keeping their heads, the fielding was altogether more acceptable with some fine catches held - most notably by Alastair Cook, a high thing that swirled around in the biffing breeze, and Ian Bell, who somehow turned, dived and clung on to a ball that had come over his head - and in chasing down an original target of 234, revised after a rain interruption to 229 from 47 overs, the batsmen - Bell and Kevin Pietersen first with a third-wicket stand of 107, and then, magnificently, Paul Collingwood - eased them home with three overs and six wickets to spare. A single blight only came in the form of an inevitable run-out, this time Phil Mustard reprising Ravi Bopara's Hamilton aberration by clouting the ball straight at a fielder and beetling off.
The series has been jemmied wide open once more. There are now two games to play - on Wednesday in the art deco capital of Napier, with no lights involved, and on Saturday week in Christchurch - both of which England must win to take the spoils. New Zealand will remain confident that they can take at least one of the matches, but it is suddenly Collingwood's side that are in the ascendancy. The optimism of Peter Moores may yet turn out to be more pragmatic than might have been thought. How much they care in New Zealand is a moot point however. This match, potentially the biggest payday of the year, was scheduled for Saturday but moved at the behest of the Eden Park Trust to accommodate the start of the Super 14 season. The ground was below half full and Collingwood and Owais Shah had barely left the arena at the end of the match when the giant transporter was trundling out to remove the drop in pitch and replace it with turf for the derby encounter between the Blues and the Chiefs.
As anticipated, England made changes to help the process of restitution, with Bopara, inevitably, making way for Dimitri Mascarenhas (hard to say this actually made a difference as he bowled moderately and did not bat) and Luke Wright, who bowled four expensive overs and also did not bat, ousting Graeme Swann. James Anderson survived the cut, however, and was rewarded with the wickets of Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder, whose unbroken match-winning opening partnership in Hamilton had tormented England in general and Anderson in particular.
If New Zealand thought they had the series sewn up, then they were wrong. Their own performance was just a little too smug, the batting unravelling in the face of urgent bowling and their own recklessness, so that at one stage they found themselves floundering at 95 for six. That they recovered to reach 234 for nine was ultimately down to Jacob Oram's 88, an innings ended by Bell's catch, and 42 from Daniel Vettori. But credit, if that is the right word, must go also to the umpire Asad Rauf, who somehow found a reason not to give Oram lbw to Ryan Sidebottom when he had made just five.
Rauf, a fellow just a little too fond of himself on the field, did not give an impressive performance, at one point depriving Oram of six runs by calling dead ball, not having been in position as the bowler bowled, and later sending Bell packing lbw for 73 when a fine century was there for the taking, the delivery from Vettori (who alone bowled brilliantly for his country) ricocheting from inside-edge to pad.
In reply, England lost both openers cheaply, Mustard's aggression negated by his impetuosity - rather than avoid the prospect of a run-out, England appeared to wish to prove to themselves and spectators alike that they really could take on the fielders: twice Bell would have been a gonner by a distance had throws hit directly - and Cook spanking a catch to midwicket trying to break the shackles following successive maiden overs. But Bell was in irresistible form, pulling his first ball to the boundary, and hitting nine more deliciously before Rauf saw him off. Pietersen saw fit to play second fiddle to this virtuosity until, with more rain threatening and Duckworth-Lewis with which to contend, he clobbered three successive boundaries, the timing of the assault spot-on. His lbw dismissal for 44, hitting across his front pad once more, was less contentious but worryingly familiar.
Instead Collingwood, with Shah as a calm partner content to feed the strike, blazed his side home with a display of hitting that took them from a position where defeat was still a possibility to the line, 45 runs coming in the final four overs. His unbeaten 70 came from just 50 balls with six fours and three sixes.
