Match report
The match belonged to ... several people
For England, Curran and Jordan (and Morgan) deserved better. But New Zealand prevailed because they had far more experience, and more than three players showing their class: Guptill and Neesham with the bat, Southee, Ferguson, Santner and Sodhi with the ball, and de Grandhomme and Guptill in the field. There has to be a Player of the Match, and it goes to Santner for his 3-25, but this was a team effort. New Zealand were cannier than England, playing the dimensions, and their fielding was in a different league. Thanks for your company, and do join Geoff Lemon for another T20 international (rain permitting).
New Zealand win by 21 runs
20th over: England 155 all out (Rashid b Mitchell 4, Brown 4 not out) The last over begins, surreally, with three dots, and ends, one ball early, with a fine yorker. NZ were far too good, even though they thought 180 was par on a sporting pitch. England lost too many early wickets and dropped far too many catches. So it’s 1-1 and rightly so.
19th over: England 154-9 (Rashid 4, Brown 3) England’s last pair are trying to get ’em in singles. This will work as long as the final over includes 17 no-balls.
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18th over: England 149-9 (Rashid 1, Brown 1) Ferguson finishes with 4-0-34-2. His extra pace came in handy.
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Wicket! Mahmood c Southee b Ferguson 4
Mahmood edges four, to open his T20 account, but then gives catching practice to cover.
17th over: England 144-8 (Rashid 1, Mahmood 0) So 33 needed off three – feasible if you have any top-order batsmen, but Saqib Mahmood has never scored a run in T20 cricket.
Wicket! Gregory c de Grandhomme b Southee 15 (England 144-8)
Lewis Gregory finally hits a six, off a knuckle ball from Southee, but instantly perishes trying to repeat himself. And Colin de Grandhomme completes the set of England’s middle order.
16th over: England 134-7 (Gregory 6, Rashid 0) Jordan found the rope one last time, with a lofted cover shove, but now he’s gone and Adil Rashid is going to have to assume the mantle.
A question from Andrew Losowsky. “Why do you think the ground is so empty? I thought T20 was supposed to be a crowdpleaser? We have the World Cup finalists playing on a weekend, and the stands look pretty sparse.” Well, certainly half-sparse, yes. I wish I knew the answer.
Wicket!! Jordan c Guptill b Santner 36 (England 134-7)
Ah, shame. Jordan’s superb counter-attack ends as he tries to drag Santner square but gets it too straight. Yet another good catch.
15th over: England 128-6 (Gregory 5, Jordan 31) Southee summons Ferguson to give Jordan a dose of his own medicine, full and straight, and it works at first, with two dots, but Jordan adjusts and chips a two and then a four. Game still alive, just: England need 49 from 30 balls.
14th over: England 120-6 (Gregory 4, Jordan 24) Hang on a minute. Jordan plays a classy cut for four off Sodhi, then wallops a six, and another, and another... He can’t, can he?
13th over: England 96-6 (Gregory 3, Jordan 1) Just when they need ten an over, England manage two singles off Santner. T20 can be cruel.
12th over: England 94-6 (Gregory 2, Jordan 0) England have got two things horribly wrong today: their catching, and their belief that you can hit down the ground on a field with short square boundaries. de Grandhomme has taken all his catches in the V.
Wicket! Malan c Guptill b Sodhi 39 (England 93-6)
And there goes their last hope. Malan lofts a ball that is so far outside off, it might have been a wide. It’s a tough chance to Guptill at long-off, running in, and he does very well to hang onto it. Game over, surely.
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11th over: England 91-5 (Malan 38, Gregory 0) Santner has 2-17 and although Malan gave him the big-swing treatment too, NZ are in charge here. England need 86 off nine with not enough wickets left.
Wicket! Curran c de Grandhomme b Santner 9 (England 91-5)
Curran is a mighty competitor but he’s also a small man, trying to whack a tall man over an even taller man, and it doesn’t work. Colin de Grandhomme has now caught as many catches as James Vince dropped.
10th over: England 82-4 (Malan 30, Curran 8) Malan finally goes big, picking up a full ball from Neesham from outside off and depositing it high in the stand at square leg. Curran joins in with a lofted late cut for four, and that’s the chunky over England needed.
Another email! And it comes with a bit of feeling. “Yeah I’m sure winning the World Cup was great,” says Benjamin Macintyre, “but have you ever gotten Bairstow out first ball haha revenge.”
9th over: England 67-4 (Malan 21, Curran 1) Sam Curran, who bowled so well, is sent in ahead of Lewis Gregory. Curran has had so much responsibility so young, it’s almost as if he plays for Man United.
Wicket! Billings c de Grandhomme b Sodhi 8 (England 64-4)
Another one! Sodhi’s googly defeats Billings as he comes down the track, and he can only slice it high to de Grandhomme. There’s nothing wrong with this England innings that can’t be fixed by four dropped catches.
8th over: England 62-3 (Malan 20, Billings 6) Yet another bowling change as Mitchell replaces Neesham. Aiming for a yorker, he gives it too much width and allows Malan to stroke a cover-drive for four. Eight off the over, which means the rate keeps climbing – it’s now just past 9.5, i.e. steep.
7th over: England 54-3 (Malan 14, Billings 4) Santner’s reward for taking the big wicket is to be taken off. On comes his fellow spinner Sodhi, who concedes only five. Malan is going along at a run a ball, and he needs to take charge now.
6th over: England 49-3 (Malan 12, Billings 2) Malan takes the hint and hits a four – off the edge, through the slips, as Neesham finds some movement in his first T20i over for 33 months. Rust? What’s that?
5th over: England 41-3 (Malan 6, Billings 0) So the switch to spin pays off. And a lot now rests on the shoulders of Malan, who has been quietly doing very little – he’s only faced eight balls, and has yet to find the boundary.
Wicket!! Morgan c de Grandhomme b Santner 32 (England 40-3)
Morgan swings Santner for six, then tries to repeat the shot, but picks out de Grandhomme. And there goes the batsman who has made nearly all of England’s runs.
4th over: England 33-2 (Malan 4, Morgan 26) Ferguson continues but may wish he hadn’t. Morgan threads a two through a crowded cover region, then slaps four past gully, and spanks six in the same direction. He has 26 off 14 balls: collapse, what collapse?
Holy crap, there’s an email. It’s our old friend Abhijato Sensarma. “That last NZ scalp,” he notes, “took Chris Jordan to number two on the list of highest T20I wicket-takers for England. It shows how phenomenal he has been in this format. Since as far as one can remember, he’s been an accurate bowler throughout the innings while also pulling off stunning catches every now and then. It’s quite a shame to see him out of the other formats, but it’s the way things have to be. With a singular focus on the World Cup next year, an extension of his purple patch can convert his status from ‘yes he’s rather good’ to ‘he’s an all-time great of the format’. Of course, there is a lot of time left between now and then, which he hopefully navigates through smoothly!” Abhijato, never mind Jordan’s undoubted excellence – I salute your single quotes.
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3rd over: England 17-2 (Malan 4, Morgan 10) After scratching around for a few balls, Morgan thinks “Sod it” and goes down the track to drive Southee inside-out for six. The man knows no fear. Can someone tell Kevin Pietersen?
2nd over: England 7-2 (Malan 2, Morgan 4) And Morgan nearly goes first ball, thick-edging Ferguson just wide of Taylor, who’s just moved from slip to gully. Mind you, with the score 3-2, Southee should have had four slips.
Wicket! Vince c Santner b Ferguson 1 (England 3-2)
He’s gone! Having a slap at Ferguson and picking out the fielder at wide third man. New Zealand have now caught as many catches out of two as Vince managed out of five. And they are hot favourites.
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1st over: England 2-1 (Malan 1, Vince 1) James Vince is having quite a day. Five catches went to him, and he dropped three of them. He comes in to bat after one ball of the innings, and finds he has the wrong gloves, so he backtracks, then reappears, edges one and misses another. He’ll probably get a hundred.
Wicket!! Bairstow c Mitchell b Southee 0 (England 0-1)
First ball of the innings! Bairstow chips an outswinger straight to mid-on, and Daryl Mitchell shows none of the leniency we saw earlier from England. Game on.
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End of innings: NZ 176-8 (Neesham c Vince b Jordan 42)
Jordan continues being immaculate, with a dot, a leg bye, and another drop as Malan, who has just told us “the key is to hold our catches”, spills a dolly. Neesham celebrates with a six, smacked over midwicket, and then Jordan gets him caught by Vince, of all people, though it takes ages to be confirmed as the ump thought it was a bump ball. So Neesham makes his T20 comeback with an excellent 42 at nearly two-a-ball, and NZ have a total that is decent without being daunting on this narrow ground.
Jordan finishes with 4-0-23-3. He, Curran and Rashid, the three senior pros, managed 31 dots from their 12 overs, while the rookies only had 11 from eight overs. Rashid was expensive between the dots, going for 40 overall, but Curran and Jordan were exemplary. They’ve kept England in this game, in the face of some awful fielding.
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19th over: NZ 166-7 (Neesham 36, Southee 1) Morgan keeps the faith with Mahmood, though he does get Jordan to talk him through things from mid-on. Not much either of them can do about this as Neesham goes inside-out with a six over extra-cover. Then a bad ball, short and on the hips, is helped round the corner for four. That’s Neesham’s career-best in T20 internationals: a good pick.
18th over: NZ 151-7 (Neesham 22, Southee 0) That is an immense over from Jordan, bowling full and straight, or short and straight, and helping himself to two for two.
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Wicket! Santner c Brown b Jordan 0 (NZ 151-7)
Another one! Santner slogs, skies it, and gives a simple catch to long-on. All down to Neesham now.
Wicket! Taylor lbw b Jordan 28 (NZ 151-6)
Taylor has been quite untroubled... and then Jordan slips in a slow full toss that hits him on the back pad as he tries a slog-sweep. Silly but effective.
17th over: NZ 149-5 (Taylor 27, Neesham 21) Morgan’s plan for the death is to have Jordan joined by Mahmood, who is slingy and built, you would think, to bowl yorkers. But he gets the line wrong to Neesham, who swings him for an easy six and now has 21 off 11 balls. The good news for England is that Taylor has switched to the anchor role and seems content with singles.
16th over: NZ 138-5 (Taylor 24, Neesham 13) Curran finally goes for a big one as Neesham drop-flicks for six, but he still finishes with a dot and the excellent figures of 4-0-22-2.
15th over: NZ 128-5 (Taylor 22, Neesham 5) Heeeere’s Jimmy, playing his first T20 international since 2017. He takes a sighter for one ball, then glances Rashid for four. Two balls later, he swings to leg and gives a simple chance which is dropped at deep square. It’s Vince again!
14th over: NZ 122-5 (Taylor 21, Neesham 0) Morgan sent for Sam Curran, who, in this England team, is the second most senior seamer, while still looking about 12. He does the business, keeping Taylor quiet and despatching his partner. Curran has 3-0-12-2.
Wicket! Mitchell c Jordan b Curran 5 (NZ 121-5)
Mitchell, desperate for a mention in the OBO, shoots for a straight six but skies it to give Jordan a simple catch.
13th over: NZ 118-4 (Taylor 18, Mitchell 4) Taylor plays an even better shot, a late cut for four off a ball from Gregory that was blameless. Eight off the over as Taylor goes to 18 off 11 balls. One of the wonders of Twenty20 is seeing what batsmen can do when they don’t have time to play themselves in.
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12th over: NZ 110-4 (Taylor 12, Mitchell 2) Ross Taylor is usually the sober senior pro in this batting line-up, but it’s Sunday afternoon and he may just have had a half of lager. He swings Rashid for a steel-wristed six, then chips him for four over cover, to regain the initiative.
11th over: NZ 98-4 (Taylor 1, Mitchell 1) A dream start for Lewis Gregory, who keeps it tight and full and now has figures of 1-0-2-1. England have been unplayable for four of these 11 overs, and unspeakable for the other seven.
Wicket! de Grandhomme b Gregory 28 (NZ 96-4)
With Brown struggling, Morgan turns to Lewis Gregory, who was the invisible man on his debut – did not bat or bowl. And he gets a wicket first ball! By hitting the top of off, as if he thinks he’s playing a Test. So both the danger-men have gone.
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10th over: NZ 96-3 (de Grandhomme 28, Taylor 0) If that was a blow, de Grandhomme is in de Nial. He flicks Rashid for four, just over the man on the 45, and then belts him for the biggest six so far, 20 rows back. At the halfway stage, NZ are narrowly on top.
Wicket!! Guptill c Vince b Rashid 41 (NZ 84-3)
Right on cue. Rashid bowls a ball so bad that you’d think only Ian Botham could take a wicket with it. Guptill, down on one knee to pull, gets it too high on the bat and offers a catch that even Vince can’t fluff.
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9th over: NZ 85-2 (Guptill 41, de Grandhomme 17) Back comes Pat Brown and de Grandhomme tucks in, standing and delivering successive sixes. It’s a triumph when Brown manages a dot as Guptill blocks. His two overs have gone for 32, this partnership is 28 off 15 balls, and England badly need a wicket.
8th over: NZ 70-2 (Guptill 39, de Grandhomme 4) Rashid beats Guptill with his first ball, but Guptill, after a single or two, gets his own back with a pull for six. The square boundaries are very short here.
7th over: NZ 59-2 (Guptill 31, de Grandhomme 1) Well done Mahmood – a first scalp and a mere six off the over. He has figures of 20-0-20-1, and now here comes some spin, from Adil Rashid.
Wicket! Seifert c Billings b Mahmood 16 (NZ 57-2)
A first international wicket for Mahmood... and he may not have guessed it would happen like this. H ebowls a slower ball outside off, Seifert sweeps it, and gets it so fine that Billings takes a comfortable catch – like a less spectacular version of the Sarah Taylor special. But Mahmood, after an early battering, will take it.
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6th over: NZ 53-1 (Guptill 30, Seifert 12) This is another drop as Jordan bounces Seifert, catches his glove, and Sam Billings leaps but can’t hold on. And a third one as Guptill has a slog and Vince, at long-on, makes a great diving effort – not dopey that time. Ten off the over, 27 off the last two, so Curran’s good work has been thrown away.
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5th over: NZ 43-1 (Guptill 22, Seifert 10) Sam Curran takes a breather with the fine figures of 2-0-8-1. On comes Pat Brown, who seems not to have noticed that his fine leg is up. He strays onto Guptill’s pads and pays the price as two leg glances go for four. Seifert joins in the fun with a six over midwicket, somewhere between a whip and a whack. And then Seifert is dropped by James Vince – a sitter at cover, off an off-break. Vince is such a talent, but he can be so dopey.
4th over: NZ 26-1 (Guptill 12, Seifert 3) Saqib Mahmood has been taken off after that pricey first over, as Morgan turns to Chris Jordan, who has played more T20 cricket for England than anyone else in the past two years. He starts, majestically, with five dots, taking pace off the ball and landing it back of a length. Finally, off the sixth ball, Seifert pierces the ring and picks up a hard-run two to the cover sweeper.
3rd over: NZ 24-1 (Guptill 12, Seifert 1) Curran is 10mph slower than Mahmood, but harder to hit because he’s bowling full and finding some swing. And now he’s got the breakthrough too. His brother, by the way, is not dropped but rested, as he has a side strain.
Wicket! Munro lbw b Curran 7 (NZ 23-1)
Cunning from Curran. A wide down the legside. A wide down the offside. And then the bullseye, spearing in at Munro’s right ankle as he strolls across his stumps. He thinks about a review, only to run out of time.
2nd over: NZ 18-0 (Guptill 10, Munro 6) Mahmood opens his account with a bouncer, which Guptill flaps at and misses. Second ball, Mahmood goes for length and Guptill whacks him for six over long-on. A few singles and then Colin Munro swings a six too, over the man at deep square. Harsh but fair.
1st over: NZ 3-0 (Guptill 2, Munro 0) Curran starts with a yorker just outside off stump, which Guptill blocks, rather tentatively. Third ball, he’s beaten, also outside off. Fourth ball, he manages a push to cover for a single, which is followed by a leg bye and another single. Another good start from Curran, and here comes the new boy.
The players are on the field and there’s not a long white cloud in the sky. The new ball has been thrown to Sam Curran.
Saqib Mahmood was presented with his cap by David Lloyd, also of Lancashire and England. This being T20, the cap was the colour of Donald Trump’s face. Saqib has just been interviewed by Bumble too, and he came across as likeable and down-to-earth. How did he hear about his call-up? “From Morgs, yesterday. I was having a nap in the afternoon, he sent me a text and I missed it, so he called me.”
One change for NZ too, as they bring in Jimmy Neesham for Scott Kuggeleijn. Since Neesham is left-handed, a star of the Super Over and highly entertaining on Twitter, the only surprise is that he was ever left out.
New Zealand 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Colin Munro, 3 Tim Seifert (wkt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Colin de Grandhomme, 6 @JimmyNeesh, 7 Daryl Mitchell, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Tim Southee (capt), 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Lockie Ferguson.
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England 1 Dawid Malan, 2 Jonny Bairstow, 3 James Vince, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Sam Billings (wkt), 6 Lewis Gregory, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Pat Brown, 11 Saqib Mahmood.
England win the toss again
And bowl again.
Early team news: England are reported (by Lawrence Booth, the editor of Wisden, on Twitter, with the lead piping) to be giving a debut to Saqib Mahmood, the Lancashire fast bowler. That’ll be their fourth new cap since the day Brexit didn’t happen.
“Good morning from foggy Hanoi, Vietnam,” says Dan Bradnam. The Dan himself. “Tried explaining cricket to my local host, but I think he thought I was asking where to do Tai Chi.”
Preamble
Morning everyone, or afternoon, or whatever it is with you. And welcome to the big one. The rugby World Cup Final was just the hors d’oeuvre. Those blustery encounters in the Premier League were merely the pasta course. The main event is this, the second of five Twenty20 internationals between New Zealand and England. Hell, it may even be remembered by next weekend. It’s in Wellington. I’m in London. Let me know where you are, and whether your day is just beginning or coming to a rumbustious close.
England, fielding more understudies than stars, are 1-0 up, and they have now strung together six wins in T20 internationals, stretching back to Sri Lanka a year ago. But the New Zealanders have a winning streak of their own to maintain – five successive victories in T20s on this ground. So it’s hello again to our old friend Something Has To Give.
The forecast is “fine, with gusty northerlies” and the game starts at 2pm local time, which is 1am GMT. I’ll be back with the teams and the toss as soon as we have them. Please try to contain your excitement.
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