Key events
10th over: England 50-0 (Brook 14, Malan 35). Henry continues and successfully cramps up Malan on leg stump this time with a shortish one that the batter swats fairly cluelessly at, then beats him outside off with a beauty. It’s a very good over to end the power play, yielding only the one single that enables England’s opening pair to bring up a calm, quite un-England like 50 partnership.
9th over: England 49-0 (Brook 14, Malan 34). Big Kyle Jamieson replaces Tim Southee at the river end, and is given the same treatment that was meted out to Southee, as Malan cover drives his first ball for four with gusto. Jamieson responds well, dragging his length back and beating a more uncertain Malan, pinned to his crease. Malan dabs another single to third man before Brook adds another well-run two through square leg.
8th over: England 42-0 (Brook 12, Malan 29). A better over for New Zealand: Brook drives Henry square on the offside to the long boundary for two, then glides down to third man for one more. Extras get off the mark at last, as Henry seeks to rein in Malan’s driving instincts and strays too far down leg for a wide. Brook, who hasn’t found the boundary since the first ball of the match, can’t get Henry away and is well beaten by a rare short one to round off the over.
7th over: England 37-0 (Brook 9, Malan 28). There’s not much movement in the stiflingly hot air but there’s plenty off the seam, Southee beating Malan with a cutter outside off, but the batter follows it up with a crisp cover drive for four, perhaps the pick of his shots so far. He repeats the trick when Southee again offers him too much width and is belted for four more. Malan is playing himself into form here, and preparing that nice headache for the selectors.
6th over: England 29-0 (Brook 9, Malan 20). Brook’s turn to be beaten by a gem of an outswinger from Henry, before deflecting a shorter one through square leg for a single. Malan is finding his mojo quicker than his partner though, and drives a half-tracker down the ground for four. This is good Proper 50-over Cricket, an increasingly under-cherished art, with encouragement for both teams and a pleasing balance and ambivalence about the scoreline and who’s on top
5th over: England 22-0 (Brook 8, Malan 14). That’s more like it from Malan, cracking a wider Southee delivery through backward point for four and, a couple of balls later, driving a fuller one past the bowler for another boundary.
4th over: England 13-0 (Brook 8, Malan 5). Brook on-drives Henry for a single before Malan twice wafts frustratedly at balls slanted across him and doesn’t get anywhere near them. He’s forced to defend for much of the over – this is good, tight, accurate stuff from the experienced New Zealand opening bowlers.
3rd over: England 11-0 (Brook 7, Malan 4). This pair are running sharply between the wickets, a sign of a good instinctive understanding in an unfamiliar pairing. Which is just as well, as boundary opportunities don’t present themselves in a tight Southee over that yields only two singles.
2nd over: England 9-0 (Brook 6, Malan 3). Matt Henry opens up at the Cathedral Road end, and beats Malan outside off first up with classic corridor-of-uncertainty length. Three singles ensue, one of which – a firm cover drive from Malan – could easily have been four but for a fine Will Young stop, but Brook seems happy to leave or defensively prod at a few if necessary.
1st over: England 6-0 (Brook 5 Malan 1). Tim Southee takes the first new ball from the river end, two slips up, and … Brook is off the mark with four. Of course he is, glancing a stray one down to the fine leg for four. There’s not a lot of movement in the first three balls before the fourth jags sharply off the seam outside off. A dabbed single and a confident legside clip for one from Malan complete the over.
The players are on their way out at a scorching-looking Sofia Gardens, as the climate-apocalyptic weather continues. You’d fancy bowling second, for comfort reasons, in this heat.
“Thought I’d go early,” writes Will Juba. “Always good to make a prediction pre-warm up games, no chance of things changing, form slipping, tear away tyros excelling…
To my mind we have 7 guaranteed starters, Bairstow, Root, Butler, Stokes, Woakes, Rash and Wood. Then it’s 8 in to 4 from Roy, Malan, Brook (who’s going, let’s face it), Livingston, Mo, Curran, Topley, Atkinson. Apologies to Willey but I see another 2019 on the horizon for him. If I had to go now, I’d pick:
Malan
Bairstow
Root
Brook
Butler
Stokes
Ali
Woakes
Rashid
Wood
Topley
Stack the batting right down to 6 (and Malan plays, he’s a monster in ODIs, people should not conflate his t20 slow starts with not being good at white ball generally). Roy misses out based on a few years of poor form – the centuries come between scores of no substance whatsoever – our 5 best bowlers on form and experience, each covering a different skill/angle/period of the game, plus a couple from Root and/or Stokes depending on conditions. My only concern is the death bowling but you can’t have it all. Others’ predictions please.
*disclaimer – Roy and Livingston will start, Malan and Brook will miss out is what I suspect will actually happen.”
Yeah I’m not sure about Roy – even though his immense contributions to 2019’s triumph were sometimes under-acknowledged – and Livingstone hasn’t quite fulfilled his potential in England colours, for all the destructive possibility he offers.
Those teams in full
England: Harry Brook, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler † (c), Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Adil Rashid, Gus Atkinson, Reece Topley.
New Zealand: Devon Conway, Will Young, Henry Nicholls, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham † (c), Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson.
In the spiritual home of the bucket hat, a suitably-hatted Ben Stokes has a chinwag with his old skipper, Eoin Morgan, on his return to ODIs: “When I decided to step away there was a few things to consider but it’s been a while since then and as you go forward, you’re in different situations and different opportunities present themselves and you feel differently. I had conversations with Keysy [Robert Key], Motty [Matthew Mott] and Jos [Buttler], and there’s a World Cup to defend. Being involved in that 2019 period was an amazing thing to be a part of and going back and trying to defend it.”
Some team news. No Santner, Boult, Allen or Milne for New Zealand, and Bairstow and Roy will miss out for England with minor injuries. Opening in their stead is none other than Harry Brook, with Dawid Malan. And Gus Atkinson, the latest off the Surrey conveyor belt, makes his England debut
New Zealand win the toss and bowl
Jos Buttler, on his 33rd birthday, tosses the coin and Tom Latham calls correctly. He’s going to have a bowl. Buttler said he’d have batted had he won the toss, so everyone’s happy.
A fair few England players are reacquainting themselves with the one-day game after a lengthy absence, including Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, both of whom are making their first ODI appearances since July last year, but the most high-profile of the returnees is of course Ben Stokes, hero of 2019, who reversed his ODI retirement for this series and the World Cup.
Whether he can ever be an all-rounder again remains a doubt though, as Tanya Aldred reported from yesterday’s presser:
Preamble
Afternoon everyone. And welcome to coverage of a lesser-spotted one-day international series. It’s increasingly hard to conveive that the 50-over game was English cricket’s overwhelming priority between 2015 and 2019. A mere four years later, the world champions at the format find themselves a month out from a World Cup preparing for their first ODI in six months, their entire squad having played no 50-over cricket throughout the summer due to their participation in the Hundred. How will they step up to the 300 today?
And England could do with some tuning up. Their white-ball cricket has been pretty patchy since 2022’s World T20 success, with struggles in South Africa and Bangladesh early in the year and an inability to handle New Zealand’s powerful fightback to square the recent T20 series. But any squad that has the luxury of grappling with whether to pick a talent as assured and in form as Harry Brook should have plenty to work with.
As for the Black Caps, this is their first ODI in a while too, their most recent series a 4-1 shellacking in Pakistan in May, but some of the T20 series’ stars will be augmented by the return of the likes of Tom Latham and Trent Boult. All of which makes this match and series fiendishly difficult to call. Bring it!
Play starts at 12.30pm BST.
