Who needs practice? After a six-month layoff, England’s T20 team performed like the world champions they are beating New Zealand by seven wickets. Liam Livingstone finished the match with a six hooked deep into the stands. Getting the band back together has never looked so easy.
Jos Buttler’s newest recruits – Brydon Carse making his T20 debut, and Luke Wood and Will Jacks playing their fourth and fifth white-ball games for England respectively – all impressed. Dawid Malan and Harry Brook went toe-to-toe in their bid for World Cup places. Motivation and confidence are equally high within Buttler’s set-up – which, ironically, might make the big selection decisions even harder.
Even on a low-scoring ground like this one, 139 for nine was the kind of total that suggested Tim Southee’s team would be getting back to their hotel long before the restaurant closed.
Malan provided the anchor as England reached 100 in the 11th over, and he brought up his half century with an imperious slog-sweep six. But Brook was the one still there at the end, his 43 off 27 including two enormous sixes off Ish Sodhi.
In March, the newly crowned world T20 champions were whitewashed 3-0 in a decidedly after-the-Lord-Mayor’s-show series in Bangladesh. Here, they assembled fresh from a month of Hundred cricket: before the match Buttler described his players as “battle-hardened”. They ran through the Kiwi batters like heavy artillery through a light brigade.
Carse’s three for 23 was even more impressive given he was not even in the squad this time last week and there were three wickets, too, for Wood, in an England bowling performance as well oiled as a hipster’s beard.
Several of the New Zealand team have also been playing in the Hundred, ensuring plenty of familiarity with English conditions, but they struggled to adjust to the pace of the pitch and the game.
Finn Allen and Devon Conway have spent the past month honing their opening partnership with Southern Brave and for a brief moment it looked like they would pick up exactly where they had left off in the Eliminator. Allen rocketed the third ball of the match back past Wood at an angle that suggested he was aiming for the International Space Station. The next two were hooked for two more sixes. England, who have never met a ball they did not want to change, had a new one before the end of the first over.
It was not the most auspicious of starts for Wood – who, like Jacks, made his England T20 debut on last year’s tour of Pakistan. But along with the change of ball came a change of end and a first hint of movement that had Conway edging behind.
Carse, with a testing length from the get-go, bowled Allen with his 10th delivery and when Wood’s cutter hit Tim Seifert’s off stump New Zealand were three down before the end of the powerplay.
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Glenn Phillips alone provided hope of a defendable total. Eschewing flashy strokeplay for a mixture of nurdling and hard running, he had gathered 41 off 38 when he fell to a smarting catch from Sam Curran, who had to chase a drifting ball wide at long-off. Sodhi struck a couple of big sixes but Carse closed the innings down with two wickets in the final over.
New Zealand needed to start strong and, thanks to their captain, Southee, they did. Buttler had dropped himself down the order to give Jacks the chance to open with Jonny Bairstow. Bairstow lasted three balls: the first he hit for four, the second slid past down leg and the third, holding its line, was prodded into Darryl Mitchell’s hands at slip.
But choosing to chase allowed England to learn from their opponents’ experience of the slow wicket. Jacks waited until the fourth over to launch his attack, blitzing Lockie Ferguson for three consecutive boundaries with his favourite scimitar-slice over the offside. Sixteen came from the over and 15 from the next by Mitchell Santner.
England were scoring at 10 an over and almost halfway to their target when Jacks over-reached himself, so greedy to dispatch a Sodhi long-hop that he managed to catch it on his bat not once but twice on its way to backward point.
