Dawid Malan leads England to victory to seal series win over New Zealand

Most of England’s World Cup squad will spend the next couple of weeks relaxing before they fly to India, but they will struggle to reach a more restful state than that in which they concluded a third successive stroll to victory against New Zealand. Fuelled by Dawid Malan’s century they set a target of 312 that quickly slipped out of the reach of a Black Caps side perhaps distracted by a relatively minor but still potentially tournament-ending injury to Tim Southee, and they eventually cantered to victory by 100 runs.

With the same teams due to meet in the World Cup curtain-raiser in Ahmedabad in just under three weeks’ time this was not even the most important England v New Zealand one-day international in the minds of those playing it, with injury the nightmare scenario. With the match still ongoing scans showed that Southee had dislocated and fractured a bone in his right thumb in the process of dropping Joe Root at slip, and it is hard to see the Black Caps keeping him in their squad when to do so would leave them with no seam-bowling cover for the duration of his recovery.

England will be mulling over Jason Roy’s place in their own selection, with the opener again ruled out here with a back issue. But Malan’s form has diminished the seriousness of the issue, and but for the fact that he goes home to a week-old baby the 36-year-old would be entitled to spend the next fortnight with his feet up and a grin on his face. Two days after falling for 96 at the Oval he went 31 better at Lord’s, with three sixes and 14 fours in his 127, along the way scoring his 1,000th ODI run with a hard, flat six off Kyle Jamieson.

It seems absurd now that just 10 days ago Malan was preparing for this series amid a chorus of voices suggesting he should be pensioned off to make way for Brook. It turned out that far from being ready for the glue factory Malan is the glue factory, and through his three appearances in this series he has been the one meshing England’s innings together. This was a third century in his last seven ODIs and took his average in 21 international appearances to 57.32. He is ideally suited to the format, and in 123 innings for club and country since 2011 his average is 53.08, with this his 15th century. Yet since coming into the England side somehow he has never reached the point where a couple of poor scores are seen as but a blip, rather than a pressing cause to question the sense of picking him at all.

Fortunately for Root, England’s former Test captain has. His 29 here was by some margin his best score of the series, though but for half a Rachin Ravindra over, from which he plundered a four and a fine slog-swept six, it was never very handsome. There were two attempts at his patented reverse ramp, both missed, and two drops at wide second slip off the luckless Ben Lister, who was to be forced off the field with a hamstring injury. The first of those drops was by Finn Allen, on as a substitute fielder, diving to his right, and after he was replaced at slip in Lister’s very next over Southee not only dropped a significantly easier chance but injured himself in the process.

Without both Lister and Southee New Zealand were forced to scrape their bowling barrel, with Glenn Phillips and Daryl Mitchell contributing 10 overs between them, and the latter bowling the last. Ravindra made up for some of his teammates’ misfortune with some luck of his own, developing the excellent habit of taking good wickets with bad balls. Brook tried to punish a rank long-hop but belted it straight to mid-on, and Malan chased a wide one and top-edged into Tom Latham’s gloves. Moeen Ali similarly attacked a ball wide enough that Ravindra would have been forced to bowl it again had it only been left alone, lifting it high to long-off.

Ravindra was by a distance the outstanding contributor to New Zealand’s reply, and when Lister dragged himself out to join him at the crease found a level no other batter on either side had reached. He slog-swept Liam Livingstone and Moeen for sixes in successive overs, forcing England to switch to seam, and then thrashed Brydon Carse for two sixes and two fours, motoring in the process from 25 off 32 to 61 off 45. He faced three more balls and scored no further runs before being beaten by Sam Curran’s yorker to end it.