England recovered from 166 for 7 to post 252 in Hamilton, eventually winning the match at a canter (by 56 runs) and with it the series.
But the scoreline rather belies the fact that England very much did the hard yards to get the win under their belts.
Tammy Beaumont was named Player of the Match for her 81 from 96 balls, continuing an emotional rollercoaster of a tour which has so far involved picking up her 100th T20 cap after a two-year wait, only to find herself dropped from the team for the final two matches of the T20 series.
Her runs were crucial today but – as Beaumont herself admitted post-match – it was all rather scrappy at times; and someone really needs to have a gentle word about her overuse of the ramp shot. And of course, she could really have done with pushing on to three figures – instead, her wicket sparked off the loss of six English wickets for 59 runs. Deja vu, anyone?
For once, New Zealand put up a fight with the bat without relying on the usual suspects – Izzy Gaze and Brooke Halliday’s 100-run partnership between the 20th and 40th overs slowly ramping up the pressure.
But New Zealand didn’t have a Beaumont-esque platform to fall back on: they were already way behind the required rate when Gaze and Halliday came together, and the pair never quite managed to catch up, meaning it was always possible that things would go belly up at the death – as indeed they did.
There was a slightly weird moment of anti-climax at the end where no one seemed to know if Bernadine Bezuidenhout (having limped off nursing a hamstring injury during England’s innings) would be batting or not. The cameras showed her sat padded up, but when it came to it, with an unlikely 50-odd runs required in 5 overs, the decision was made not to send her in. The commentators were incredibly critical of this, and in one case even vocally criticised her “lack of commitment to her country”, which seemed unfair given that we have no way of knowing how serious her injury might be.
From England’s perspective, it was great to see another confident knock from Amy Jones, following hot on the heels of her 92* in Monday’s game. A hallmark of Jones’s career has been the “coming of age knock” – every couple of years, she has one good outing with the bat, and the media then proclaim that Jones Has Finally Arrived™️. Next game, she clambers firmly back into her shell… and so the cycle goes on. After Monday’s match, Jones talked about having put in “a bit of work around my mental game” – let’s hope she is right and the boom-and-bust cycle is well and truly broken.
After a record-breaking partnership with Charlie Dean on Monday, this time Jones shared the stage with Kate Cross, who as Alex Hartley reminded us on comms, knows her way around a bat. England scored 63 runs in the final 10 overs:
The flip side of this, of course, is that the middle order failed again. Serious questions have to be asked about their mindset – one collapse can be disregarded as an accident, but three in the space of one tour looks like carelessness. England have done what they went to New Zealand to do, claiming two series wins… but there is certainly no room for complacency.
CRICKETher 
Not sure whether I’m more frustrated by England’s middle order batting( WPL ‘big guns’ not firing…is Capsey a 50 over player?), or NZ’s inability to put in a good all round performance, enabling them to gain the win.
Watching both white ball series has been very frustrating!
LikeLike
England’s ODI middle order feels unbalanced.
Alice Capsey and Danni Wyatt are fine T20 batters but they duplicate roles in the ODI team. What England lack right now is a reliable #5 who can actually build an innings and bat long. Yesterday felt like a perfect opportunity for Capsey to do just that, coming in with 24 overs remaining; but her 5th consecutive single-digit score merely added to the evidence that she struggles in the format.
An obvious problem is that it’s not clear who could replace her (or Wyatt) and add that much-needed ballast to the middle order. If there was an outstanding candidate they’d be in the team already. But perhaps it presents an opportunity for someone to dominate the RHFT this summer and put their name in the frame?
LikeLike
One bright spot for NZ at least – Halliday could do that for NZ, she has lovely strokeplay albeit with a lower SR. They will probably make her play 360 and stuff that up though.
LikeLike
Sadly, New Zealand’s results are the least intriguing part of their matches at the moment, as they persist with their selection policy based on finding the next prodigy (hey, it worked to find Melie Kerr, bound to work regularly, isnt it? No way are players like her the exception, right?)
It’s always interesting to see how the management try to pull the wool over our eyes and say these are the best eleven players in NZ. Clearly 4 or 5 are not, but they are the best-favoured eleven. Nepotism hasnt made it into a mainstream news articles about the White Ferns but it must be about to, surely.
The other interesting thing is to listen to the commentators who variously don’t know a thing about women’s cricket (hello Mark Richardson) or don’t care (Hello Scott Stevenson, your comments on Bezuidenhout were crass at best) or leave out important information (Rolls trying to gloss over Gaze’s struggles as a keeper while not mentioning that she coaches her)
White Ferns selections are the Emperor’s new clothes – when will someone in the media point out the nudity?
(Bernadine Bezuidenhout took two years off cricket as she had a severe case of RED-S. She had made herself very ill with her commitment to training to play cricket for her region and her country. And some ill-read commentator questions her willingness to put it on the line for NZ? Despicable)
LikeLike
Agree with this, Stevenson came across as incredibly cruel and unnecessarily harsh. A player can’t play if she’s injured, for goodness sake! For all we know the appearance of her padding up might just have been to keep England guessing, this tactic happens all the time. His comments put a downer on the end of the game’s coverage and left a sour taste in the mouth, and I say that as an England fan.
This tour has not been entirely satisfactory for England, still plenty of improvements to be made. We look very shaky in the middle order. Bouchier has been a plus, the bowling has been good at times, and the batting has just done enough, usually. Shame Glenn got injured though.
LikeLike