England fail to impress

Joe Root was bowled by Nathan McCullum for 30
31 May 2013

Sloppy England paid for a succession of bad shots as they stuttered to a mediocre 227 for nine in the first NatWest Series match against New Zealand at Lord's.

England, playing in their new red limited-overs kit for the first time, were decidedly off-colour with the bat as one batsman after another got in and then out before he could begin to dominate.

After being put in under cloud cover on a good pitch, they lost both openers in successive Tim Southee overs and then numbers three and five in a similar sequence to off-spinner Nathan McCullum. Eight batsmen reached double figures, but Jonathan Trott's 37 was the top score of a faulty innings against disciplined Kiwi bowling.

England, rocked before the start of play by the injury-enforced absence of frontline seamers Stuart Broad and Steven Finn, began carefully as a new ball at either end swung for both Mitchell McClenaghan and Kyle Mills.

It was not until the introduction of Southee as first change at the Pavilion End that the hosts' encouraging early progress was interrupted. Southee finished with three for 37, adding the wicket of Tim Bresnan late on.

Away swing initially did the trick, first Ian Bell and then Alastair Cook falling in near right and left-hand mirror-image. Wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi, on debut for his native New Zealand having previously played seven limited-overs matches for Australia, completed the two dismissals.

Southee's successive wicket-maidens left Trott and Joe Root trying to reassemble a platform for the strokemakers still to come. The third-wicket pair, like Bell and Cook before them, did much of the hard work - only to squander it.

A half-century stand carried England into three figures before Root missed an attempted reverse-sweep at McCullum and was bowled off-stump. Trott's slog-sweep at McCullum picked out deep midwicket with near pinpoint accuracy, then Eoin Morgan advanced to McClenaghan before trying to bail out of a cross-bat shot and managing only to loop a simple catch to Ronchi.

Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes had a rare chance to bat for more than 20 overs, but had to start from scratch together. They did so acceptably until, goaded perhaps by Brendon McCullum's provocative use of Kane Williamson's part-time off-spin in powerplay, Buttler reverse-swept straight into the hands of point.

England mustered 19 for one in the five overs of fielding restrictions - and although Woakes' career-best 36 and then Bresnan's 25 helped out handily, the collective effort looked well short.

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