England wrapped up their T20 series against New Zealand in Canterbury on Thursday with a tense six-wicket win in the final over to take a 3-0 lead with two matches remaining despite coach John Lewis’ controversial decision to rest captain Heather Knight.
Alice Capsey made a career-best 67 for no runs after her lbw decision was overturned by DRS on 40 – when the call revealed she had missed the leg stump – while New Zealand paid the price for fielding errors, getting Amy Jones out on 11 and 18. Then, a misfield by Fran Jonas in the deep third saw the ball sail over the boundary and England homered with four balls to spare.
In the sixth match of the tour, New Zealand finally forced England to fight for a win. The hosts had their nerves hit when Maia Boucher was run out lbw by Hannah Rowe off the first ball, then their nerves were hit again when a mid-innings wobbled left-arm spinner Jonas lost two wickets in two balls.
Sophie Devine and Mary Carr piled on the pressure towards the end, getting Jones out for 22 off 15 balls, but Freya Kemp hit consecutive boundaries off Kasperek and England could only score five runs in the final over.
Earlier, Devine had smashed two huge sixes and consecutive fours in the final three balls of the innings to scale a powerful 58 for none, with New Zealand adding 41 runs in the final three overs.
Fellow Smash Sister Suzie Bates shot a brilliant 38 to become just the third woman to reach 10,000 international strokes and a first for New Zealand, joining only India’s Mithali Raj and England’s Charlotte Edwards in the past to achieve the feat.
But in the meantime, New Zealand’s innings was floundering like a dead fish, with Sophie Ecclestone scoring 4 for 25, including breaking Bates and Kerr’s 52-run powerplay partnership with a double breakthrough in the eighth over.
With their sights set on Bangladesh, England continued to use a rotating line-up of bowlers, giving seamers Kemp and Dani Gibson the chance to bowl in the powerplay and at the death. Kemp had a bandaged shoulder and Gibson a bandaged knee. But if Thursday had been John Lewis’ day of questions, he might not have enjoyed the answers very much. Kemp was punished for 38 runs in three overs, but did bowl one fine yoke ball to dismiss Hannah Rowe.
But the strangest part of England’s World Cup “what if” scenario planning was “resting” Knight, a move that was supposed to reassure England that they would be perfectly fine if their captain suffered a nasty Delhi belly in Bangladesh – but it backfired. Nat Sciver Brunt is officially England’s vice-captain, but it’s unfair to the player to expect someone who has hardly ever captained any team – domestic, franchise or global – to be able to switch the captaincy on and off at a moment’s notice.
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Shiver Brunt’s indecisiveness did England no favours on Thursday when Charlie Dean prematurely started his run-up, forcing the ground announcer to issue a hasty correction, before being abruptly replaced by Lauren Filer before he had a chance to bowl.
Then, with England’s run-chasing teetering at 66 for 2 in the ninth over and needing 76 off 67 balls, Sybar Brunt was ducked out with the first ball by Jonas and was out lbw. To make matters worse, she failed to send the decision upstairs, despite Hawk-Eye later indicating that she should have missed the leg stump. Meanwhile, where was Knight? Live on Sky, talking about the match she was meant to play.
