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4th over: New Zealand 23-1 (Gaze 15, Kerr 1) Magnificent batting from Izzy Gaze. She laps Wong over Amy Jones’s head behind the stumps for four and then follows up with a blistering drive over long on for SIX! Charlie Dean is summoning Sophie Ecclestone.
3rd over: New Zealand 12-1 (Gaze 5, Kerr 1) Amelia Kerr arrives at first drop and is off the mark off her first ball with a single down to long on. Gaze then slaps a shorter ball from Smith over midwicket for the first boundary of the game. Some decent cat and mouse between Smith and Gaze, the batter shuffles around her crease and the bowler outfoxes her with a slow and wide yorker slower that Gaze can only get a toe end on. Chalk please.
WICKET! Suzie Bates c Dunkley b Smith 3 (New Zealand 7-1)
Gone! Bates plays a pre-meditated reverse but ends up plinking it straight to Dunkley at backward point.
2nd over: New Zealand 7-0 (Bates 1, Gaze 5) Issy Wong starts from the other end. She’s not as tidy as Smith, a wide and some radar finding deliveries in her first. Gaze gets off the mark with a cut past point and Bates inside edges a good length ball past fine leg for a couple. No boundaries yet for the visitors.
1st over: New Zealand 1-0 (Bates 1, Gaze 0) It will be interesting to see how this surface plays, England opt to start with the miserly Smith and her medium pace spinners… she’s so good, tying Bates down for five consecutive dots before a drive to mid on get New Zealand under way eventually. Quiet start.
The players take the field, plenty of zinc on faces and sun hats and sombrero’s in the stands. Linsey Smith has the new ball in hand for England. Suzie Bates and Izzy Gaze to open up for the White Ferns. Play!
Teams:
England: Sophia Dunkley, Alice Capsey, Maia Bouchier, Heather Knight, Freya Kemp, Dani Gibson, Amy Jones (wk), Charlie Dean (c), Sophie Ecclestone Izzy Wong, Linsey Smith
New Zealand: Izzy Gaze (wk), Suzie Bates, 3 Melie Kerr (c), Sophie Devine, Brooke Halliday, Maddy Green, Izzy Sharp, Jess Kerr, Nensi Patel, Rosemary Mair, Bree Illing
Lauren Bell put her feet up for England – Sophie Ecclestone comes in.
For New Zealand – Suzie Bates replaced the beleagured Georgia Plimmer who has made two consecutive golden ducks. Rosemary Mair is back in for Leah Tahuhu.
New Zealand win the toss and will bat first
Melie Kerr calls the coin correctly and decides to have first use of a sun baked pitch.
“We’ll try and have a better start than last time,” she says after her side were tottering at 11-4 in the previous match in Canterbury. The still managed to win though, largely thanks to the experienced hands of Sophie Devine who made an assured 87 with support from a half century scoring Maddy Green. An all round bowling effort then restricted England’s chase and saw them fall 14 runs short. Today it is winner takes all.
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the deciding T20 between England and New Zealand from Hove.
It’s crackin t’flags eh?
The sun is beating down on the south coast and the mercury is hovering around 31 degrees for this third and final encounter.
The team captains are out there in the middle and about to toss the coin…
The match begins at 14.30, as ever please do get in touch with your hopes and dreams thoughts and theories at the link on the left hand of this page.
Let’s do this.
