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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.
Teams
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.
Pre-match Commentary
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.
Post-toss Commentary
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 conceive 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.
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