Collingwood leads England to crushing defeat of New Zealand
Posted by Hamish McBrearty on February 7th, 2008
England won the second Twenty20 match of their series over the Black Caps by 52 runs at AMI Stadium, Christchurch. Captain Paul Collingwood lead from the front with 54 runs, while the New Zealand batsmen struggled…again.
New Zealand showed that their domination of Bangladesh earlier in the summer was an anomaly and regular service has resumed, the batsmen in particular failing miserably. By contrast England showed their class and character, rebuilding their innings when it was teetering and then keeping the New Zealand batsmen under immense pressure.
The Black Caps went into the game without all-rounder Jacob Oram due to a hamstring injury and left out Jeetan Patel after he gave up four consecutive sixes to Dmitri Mascarenhas in Auckland. England decided against changing a winning formula, selecting the same 11 who won by 32 runs in Auckland two days ago.
Openers Luke Wright and Phil Mustard got England off to a flying start, at one stage taking 22 runs off one Paul Hitchcock over. Going along at 12 runs per over after five overs, a big score was on the cards but England found themselves slowed down by a spirited fightback from the Black Caps.
In the space of three overs New Zealand picked up four wickets for just 11 runs, new comer Tim Southee picking up dangermen Mustard and Kevin Pietersen in his first two overs. Some poor fielding but even worse running proved to be the undoing of Ian Bell who was run out for one, after trying to steal a run when Ross Taylor misfielded at mid-off.
It was up to captain Collingwood and Owais Shah to steady the ship, a job they did superbly, putting on 102 from just 61 balls before they fell in consecutive balls to Hitchcock. Mascarenhas and Graeme Swann then played excellent cameos, taking 15 off the last seven balls.
The New Zealand reply suffered the double whammy of starting too slowly and losing early wickets, being reduced to 19-2 after four overs. The England new ball bowlers, James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom, bowled quickly and accurately, forcing the Black Caps batsmen to resort to some wild swings.
Ross Taylor put up some resistance smashing 21 off just 10 balls but wickets fell at regular intervals and the required run rate continued to climb. New Zealand’s highest partnership was just 30 and the highest score came from Jamie How with 31, neither anywhere near enough to chase down England’s mammoth total.
England take the two match Twenty20 series by 2-0 and will take a great deal of momentum into the ODI series which begins in Wellington on Saturday. The New Zealand batsmen will need to improve their game a great deal if they are to come close to England throughout the rest of this series.
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The Collingwood leads England to crushing defeat of New Zealand by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
