AFTER Mount Maunganui and Hamilton, England’s batting floundered for a third time in Wellington and ensured they couldn’t avoid the ignominy of a series sweep.
New Zealand suffered a couple of hiccups enroute their chase of 222 but got over the line with two wickets to spare and completed only their second whitewash of England in an ODI series.
The victory, set up and finished by Blair Tickner, rounds off a dominant performance in the series from the hosts, who have not lost an ODI rubber on home soil since February 2019.
England have been hard done by their toss luck in this series and Harry Brook lost another coin flip at the Sky Stadium and had to see his under-fire batting line-up front up first in tough conditions.
In no time they were down to 44 for 5 in 10.1 overs. Their struggles have been amplified by the paltry returns from their openers, who have aggregated only 29 runs from six innings in this series – the lowest such tally for England in an ODI series.
Today though, Jamie Smith and Ben Duckett were just two of the top five, who all failed to get into double figures. England had been worse off at 33 for 5 in Mount Maunganui, but their captain that day counter-attacked his way to a sensational century. Today he became the second of Jacob Duffy’s three scalps in the opening burst with Zakary Foulkes adding the other two.

There was a brief recovery as Jos Buttler and Sam Curran added 53 for the sixth wicket. The former survived a sensational first ball and got past numerous plays and misses from Duffy, who with Foulkes bowled unchanged for the first 14 overs. Just when the half-century stand threatened to blossom into something more substantial, Tickner arrived into the attack and knocked over Curran through ricochets off bat and pad. Buttler lost his stumps more emphatically to a full nip-backer from Tickner that flattened his off-stump.
Jamie Overton provided more assured resistance in progressively easing conditions. He pulled a four to get off the mark and then hit a flat six that left a mark on the boundary wall.
Brydon Carse joined in by slogging Mitchell Santner for back-to-back sixes as the pair put on 58 off just 50 balls. Carse fell to Tickner for 36 but Overton hung around to complete his maiden ODI half-century. It took the visitors past 200 and at 40.2 overs, they’d faced more balls than in any other ODI this series, but the score was still under under par.
That New Zealand needed Tickner to walk out with the bat and score the 27 remaining runs with Foulkes for the win wasn’t anticipated when Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra added 78 for the first wicket in just 12.1 overs. The slide began when the former was run-out at the non-striker’s end. After Ravindra was cleaned up by Sam Curran four short of a half-century, Will Young was prized out by Jamie Overton.
Regular wickets came England’s way as Tom Latham became the second batter in the innings to be run-out while Michael Bracewell fell after a brief stand with Daryl Mitchell. Crucially, Mitchell, the player of the series, scored 44 and added 41 in a seventh wicket stand with Santner. The target was brought down under 35 but Santner and Nathan Smith fell in successive overs while Mitchell fell to Curran, bringing England to within two wickets of victory. However, Harry Brook in his search for wickets had justifiably bowled out his frontline bowlers and didn’t have enough firepower to prevent Tickner and Foulkes to condemn the former World Champions to their 18th loss from 26 games dating back to the 2023 World Cup. (Cricbuzz)