England 291 for 6 (Buttler 72, Malan 54, Stokes 52, Livingstone 52) vs New Zealand
Either way, England could be more than satisfied with their efforts on a surface that held up for spin and seam alike, and made the aggressive option fraught with danger. Auspiciously for England, Buttler is in some of the best form of his life this year – no mean feat given his habitually high standards – so the fact that even he struggled to cut loose against a canny New Zealand attack, in which the left-armer Rachin Ravindra excelled with 3 for 48, the best of his short ODI career.
In the end, he settled for 72 from 68, with five fours and a brace of straight sixes, dumped up and over the short straight boundary at the River Taff End, as Ravindra twice missed his mark in rare deviations from New Zealand’s otherwise rigidly applied gameplan of bowling into the pitch, to invite awkward cross-batted launches out into the deep pockets square of the wicket on either side of Sophia Garden’s rectangular playing surface.
The bulk of his runs were added in a fourth-wicket stand of 88 with Stokes, a mini-reprisal of their repair job in the World Cup final, after three quick wickets, including an off-colour Joe Root, had left the innings wobbling at 101 for 3 in the 21st over. He was then more passive in a lively 77-run stand with Livingstone, whose long-levered approach connected on three fours and three consecutive sixes off the lanky Kyle Jamieson, who was playing in his first ODI since April 2022 as he continues his return from back surgery.
Buttler’s knock might have ended on 37, when he toe-ended a pull off Lockie Ferguson back over the bowler’s head, but in the end it was another top-edge that did for him, as Southee served up a slower ball in his penultimate over that Ferguson held at mid-off. But on his watch, England had been given more than a fighting chance – much as in the 2019 World Cup, even on a surface that didn’t entirely play to their full-throttle strengths, they’ve found enough muscle to get their runs on the board.
Notwithstanding Buttler’s efforts, arguably the excitement of England’s innings peaked with his squad announcement at the toss. With Jason Roy succumbing to a back spasm, and Jonny Bairstow rested in the wake of his shoulder niggle in the fourth T20I, their batting was launched not by a reunion of the 2019 old guard, but by a potential harbinger for the 2023 defence, as Harry Brook was thrust up to open alongside Malan.
The stage might have been set for a comedic run-out … instead the upshot was a measured opening partnership of 80 in exactly 15 overs, and perhaps contrary to any pre-innings presumptions, it was Malan who made most of that running in another pointedly fighting knock, studded with nine cherry-picked fours, the majority blazed through the covers as he capitalised on New Zealand’s fuller lengths in the powerplay.
It was an innings that looked even better in hindsight, once England’s engine-room had struggled to match his even tempo – most particularly Root, who never looked settled in his torturous knock of 6 from 15 – and after rolling his wrists on a pull through fine leg to bring up a 48-ball fifty, Malan seemed to tap his pad with his bat in an act of self-congratulation, a tacit acknowledgement of the pressure he is currently under.
And yet, the doubters will not have been entirely silenced by his display – least of all the manner in which it ended. With a World Cup in India looming, a vulnerability against spin isn’t an ideal Achilles heel. Yet it took just two balls of Ravindra’s introduction for his start to be picked apart, as he planted his front foot on the line of off stump, and might well have been given out lbw had the ball not ricocheted onto his elbow and down onto his stumps.
Nevertheless, in the personal shoot-out stakes, Malan had been quicker on the trigger than his opening partner. Despite a first-ball clip off the pads for four, Brook cut a subdued figure in his first stab as an ODI opener, and given that this is just his fourth 50-over match of any vintage since before the last World Cup.
He was noticeably starved of the strike for much of the powerplay, 24 balls to 48 at one point, which may or may not have been an act of subtle one-upmanship on his team-mate’s part. Nevertheless he struggled to land any telling blows in the course of a 41-ball 25 all told, with just one other boundary – a wristy blap across the line against Jamieson. And then, just four balls after Malan’s departure, Ferguson bent his back in a blistering mid-innings spell, to find a perfectly directed bouncer that Brook could only fence meekly to the keeper.
And so it was that Root and Stokes, England’s multi-format old firm, were reunited at 80 for 2 without either man having faced a ball. They could have been parted before they’d started too, when Stokes fenced his first ball, another fierce lifter, inches over the head of the sprawling Glenn Phillips at gully. One over later, Root survived a huge and reviewed appeal for lbw after inside-edging Ravindra onto his pads, but ultimately his stay would prove similarly stodgy to his last ODI against New Zealand – his forgettable knock of 7 from 30 in the World Cup final.
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket