It was “Maia way or the highway” for England in Nelson… and they chose the highway, undoing all the good work of what should have been a match-winning 71 off 47 balls from Maia Bouchier. England collapsed from 126-2 at the end of the 15th over, with just a run-a-ball 30 required, to 152-8, falling 4 short of victory.

Bouchier was in early, after Sophia Dunkley was run out for a duck in the second over. (It was a sharp single, but the kind England take all the time and Dunkley was beaten by an inch – if she’d only have dived, she’d have made it.) Bouchier was quickly up and at the New Zealand bowling, hitting her first and third balls for 4s off Hannah Rowe; with Rowe having come in to the New Zealand XI for Jess Kerr, who didn’t seem to have done a lot wrong, but we assume was dropped to slightly strengthen the batting?

If you were penning a match report just from the scorecards, you’d probably write now that “Bouchier built on the 43* she’d made in the 1st T20” but that would be a total mischaracterisation. Having looked slightly timid and afraid in the earlier match, Bouchier’s mindset appeared completely different today, and she played the situation to perfection. She was very positive, without being reckless, as her and Tammy Beaumont motored towards the highest powerplay score of the series so far, taking them to 60-1 off the first 6 overs.

The final tally for Bouhier and Beaumont was a partnership of 92 off 61 balls, putting England in control – 25 runs ahead on where New Zealand had been at the end of the 12th over in which Beamont was dismissed.

Having starred in the first two matches, Heather Knight was happy to sit back and watch from the other end as Bouchier pushed on. Knight ran single after single to get Bouchier back on strike, and the reward was another 24 runs from 15 balls, which should have put the match beyond doubt.

TV commentators aren’t supposed to admit the match is done until the very last ball is bowled. (“So it’s 19 required from the final ball, but if they can just hit 3 consecutive no-balls for six, they could still take this to a super over…”) But Alex Hartley was right when she basically said we could start the car. England, however, had other ideas, instigating one of the most calamitous collapses I’ve ever seen from a supposedly “top” international side, losing 5 wickets for 21 runs in the death phase as the ship went down.

It’s unfair to pick on one player… but I’m going to do it anyway.

[Bess Heath… if you are reading this… please look away now – it definitely wasn’t really your fault.]

Bess Heath… what were you thinking? You were the last recognised batter, aside from accidental debutante Hollie Armitage. You needed 9 off 9 balls. You had time – not much of it, but enough. Now was not the time to roll out the glory mow. And yet… roll it out you did, with entirely predictable consequences.

England’s up and coming generation, of which Bess Heath is part, are an exciting prospect; but they are like a radio with the volume stuck on 11 – every ball is theirs to slog-sweep!

Heath’s recklessness left poor Hollie Armo holding a live grenade on a day which must have seen her run a whole marathon of emotions. She will have been bitterly disappointed not to be named in the starting XI – she will have known that this was almost certainly her final chance to be an international cricketer, and to have come so close yet so far, must have been dismaying. Then the head-injury to Sarah Glenn thrust her in, initially as a substitute fielder and then as a concussion sub, meaning she gets a full England cap that no one can ever take away from her. Then to be thrown in at the deep end in the midst of a storm, and have to walk off having been bowled by Suzie Bates’ first ball of the day. It was a day she’ll want to remember for ever… and a day she’ll forever want to forget.

A day to forget for England was of course a day to remember for New Zealand – a famous victory from the jaws of defeat. And what they have shown today is that when things go their way, they have the resources to beat the top sides, even if they are (if we are brutally honest) no longer one of them. Sophie Devine’s 60 runs to gift her side that huge death phase, giving them (just) enough to bowl at; the support from Amelia Kerr; Suzie Bates stepping up in that final over. You only need to win two big games to win a T20 World Cup. This match was notice – they could yet do that later this year.

England recovered from the precarious position of 77 for 6 to post 149 for 7, enough to overcome New Zealand by 15 runs at Nelson.

Heather Knight posted a second consecutive half-century, and shared crucial partnerships of 45 off 30 with Charlie Dean, and 27 off 12 with Sarah Glenn. England’s most productive game-phase was the last 4 overs, by far:

Linsey Smith, selected in place of Lauren Filer, then proceeded to take a wicket with her first ball in international cricket in almost 5 years – Suzie Bates top-edging an attempted slog sweep to short fine leg – as New Zealand hared off after the target a bit more aggressively than they actually needed to, and ended up tripping over their own shoelaces.

This has been a very important start to the tour by Knight, who (including her 52 v India in December) has now hit three fifties in as many T20 innings. Believe it or not, prior to that she hadn’t hit a T20 half-century since BC (Before Covid) – February 2020 to be precise – and there were starting to be rumbles, including here at CRICKETher Towers, about whether she should actually still be part of England’s T20 team at all, let alone skippering it. Whatever happens in the next 6 months, she’s now put that question to bed, at least until after the World Cup.

It’s interesting, as well, that Knight has bowled in both these opening matches. England have used her very sparingly with the ball of late, partly due to injury – the last time she sent down overs in back-to-back T20s was actually also in February 2020 – but could it be that they see her as an extra bowling option on those spin-friendly pitches in Bangladesh later this year?

England’s innings showed the value of a long batting line-up: Dean still seems absolutely wasted at No.8, while Glenn – lest we forget – was once touted as a possible T20 opener for England. (Not that they actually need another one of those at the moment!) But England should also count themselves lucky, because a side with even slightly more batting depth than New Zealand would surely have made them pay for some sloppy decisions by the top order.

Syd’s blood pressure gradually RAMPED up (gettit?) as Maia Bouchier, Dean and finally Melie Kerr all perished to a particular shot (ahem).

Melie Kerr’s was perhaps the least forgivable of all – New Zealand needed 50 off 33 balls at the point at which she got out, which was perfectly feasible, and didn’t call for a gung-ho approach.

A continent away, Australia have recently pulled a rabbit out of a hat in their first ODI against Bangladesh – posting 213 after being 112 for 6 – proving that the best teams never say die. New Zealand, by contrast, seem quite happy to wave a white flag at the earliest opportunity. With Kerr back in the dugout, the hosts proceeded to lose a further 4 wickets for 8 runs and the game was done and dusted.

Syd’s Matterhorn tells the story – look at how New Zealand’s line dips under England’s, pretty much straightaway after Kerr’s wicket in the 15th over:

Realistically, New Zealand probably have one more crack at winning a match this series, before England’s four best players return to the XI after their WPL-enforced absence. It doesn’t feel massively likely, does it?

Between 2010 and 2016, the average first innings score in a women’s T20 international was 119*. Had they been chasing 119, New Zealand would have won today’s game in the 19th over, rather than losing by 27 runs, after England had set them a target of 160 at the University Oval in Dunedin.

It is a new era now, and there is no better illustration of how the Women’s Premier League has changed everything than that even England’s innings felt slightly pedestrian, lacking the swagger and joie de vivre that we’ve become accustomed to watching the WPL these past few weeks. There was only one six in the entire match – struck by Heather Knight shortly before she was dismissed – and a general air of caution throughout, with just 9 wickets falling across both innings.

Tammy Beaumont opened the batting as expected, and tried to be positive, but looked a little bit like a player who hasn’t picked up a cricket bat in anger for 4 months, possibly because… she was a cricket player who hadn’t picked up a cricket bat in anger for 4 months – not counting last week’s warm-ups, her last match was at WBBL in November.

Maia Bouchier and Sophia Dunkley, both under a certain amount of selection pressure with Danni Wyatt and Alice Capsey returning from WPL for the final two games of this series, gave the impression that their main priority was not getting out cheaply. In that, both succeeded, and hopefully it will give them confidence to open up and express themselves a bit more in the next couple of matches.

(Note to Maia and Dunks: that doesn’t mean you need to go “Full Metal Capsey” and try to ramp your first ball for six – there’s a balance!)

Even Heather Knight, the backbone of England’s performance with the bat today, took her time to get going, struggling to generate power early in her innings, and needing 11 balls to find the boundary for the first time. Having done so though, she picked up the pace nicely and continued to run hard between the wickets to give her strike rate that extra bump which England rightly believe might be the difference in those big matches to come.

Having seen England make 160, New Zealand needed to go fairly hard, and initially they achieved that, bettering England’s total of 41-1 from the powerplay to reach 44-1 after 6 overs and give themselves a glimpse of hope.

But the detail reveals a more complicated picture than the headline suggests. Georgia Plimmer was 16 off 14 balls at the end of the powerplay, but she had hit just one boundary for that 16, relying instead on getting through the ring and running. As soon as the field went out her options closed down, and the next 10 deliveries she faced produced just 5 runs, with Sarah Glenn producing a masterclass in control to lock her out of the scorebook and eventually claim her wicket.

Glenn’s destiny is probably to spend her entire career fighting for her place in the side with Charlie Dean, given that Sophie Ecclestone is the best in the world, and England are mostly unlikely to play three spinners. But a World Cup in Bangladesh might be the one time they do take that option, which is going to make things easier for the selectors, given how brilliantly both Dean and Glenn bowled today.

Glenn and Dean’s case to both play as part of a Spin Trident was helped by the fact that the second seamer options looked particularly unappetising today. Dani Gibson opened the bowling ahead of Lauren Filer, despite Filer basically being picked on pace alone, which you’d have thought warranted giving her the new ball. Gibson was… fine; but she’s a long way from the definite article as a bowler at this stage of her career.

And then when Filer did get the ball, she demonstrated exactly why Heather Knight didn’t have the confidence in her up-top, as Suzie Bates casually introduced her to the boundary rope 3 times. Filer ended up conceding 22 from 2 overs, and wasn’t called on again.

Meanwhile Lauren Bell denied anyone the excuse that “it wasn’t a quick’s wicket” by having – and I appreciate that I’m sticking my neck out a bit here – perhaps the best game of her England career. That might sound somewhat strange, given that we saw no fireworks and she failed to find the swing that Jess Kerr had earlier in the day; but what we did see was a player who looked completely comfortable and in control of her own game – there were plans, and she executed them.

As for New Zealand, maybe it is unfair to judge them, without their two best players, Amelia Kerr and Sophie Devine? But they just look like a team stuck in a bygone era, when getting 133 would win you the game. The fact that Hollie Armitage, who has never been capped by England and who didn’t get a game today despite the absence of Wyatt, Capsey and Sciver, tore up the Super Smash, perhaps says something rather uncomfortable about where the domestic game is at in New Zealand? It just isn’t preparing the younger players for the way that cricket is played now. I love history. I majored in history. But I wouldn’t want to go there.

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* Based on 143 matches between what are now the ICC Championship teams in the cricsheet.org catalog.