England and New Zealand have been playing ODI matches as lead up to CWC 2023. While New Zealand have been able to find momentum in T20I series, and won the first match, they lost rest three. England won the fourth ODI by 100 runs in a most convincing manner. Dawid Malan with his century helped his team to score 311 runs in this match and New Zealand struggled in the chase. England won the match by 100 runs to seal the ODI series win.
England have won the toss and elected to bat first. Jonny Bairstow(13) failed but Joe Root(29) made a good contribution. Jos Buttler(36), Liam Livingstone(28) rallied alongside opener Dawid Malan to help England score 300 plus again. Ben Stokes after his destructive innings did not bat in this match. Even New Zealand missed their star bowler Trent Boult. Dawid Malan scored 127 runs from 114 balls. Sam Curran(20), David Willey(19) and Brydon Carse(15) chipped in to help England score 311/9 in 50 overs. Rachin Ravindra(4/60), Daryl Mitchell(2/40), Matt Henry(2/69) and Kyle Jamieson(1/53) took wickets for New Zealand.
In the chase, New Zealand kept losing wickets and never found formidable partnerships. Devon Conway(7), Daryl Mitchell(4), Tom Latham(13) kind of stars failed for them. Glenn Phillips(25) and Henry Nicholls(41) tried their best but couldn’t really make big impact. Rachin Ravindra had his best match for New Zealand with 4 wickets and made 61 runs with bat. His effort helped New Zealand crossed 200 runs, still they got bowled out for 211 against England. Moeen Ali(4/50), Brydon Carse(1/53), Liam Livingstone(1/34), David Willey(1/28) and Sam Curran(1/21) took wickets for England.
With 3-1 England won against New Zealand and CWC champions have announced to world that they should not be taken lightly. Even though 2023 tournament is happening in India, batting form of England is surely going to make many teams think twice before fielding their teams against them. In 2011, England struggled against quality spin and now, they have good batters who can negate it. With IPL experience, some of them look confident for CWC 2023. Opening match between England and New Zealand will be a treat to watch.
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