Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell struck excellent centuries as New Zealand secured an eight-wicket victory over hosts England within the first one-day Worldwide in Cardiff on Friday to ramp up their preparations for subsequent month’s World Cup in India.
Half-centuries from Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone had powered England to 291-6 after being put into bat at Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens.
New Zealand’s chase bought off to a robust begin, with Will Younger and Henry Nicholls contributing runs, earlier than Conway (111 from 121 balls) and Mitchell (118 from 91) shared a shocking stand of 180.
After each batters introduced up their 100s, the duo stepped on the fuel and Conway sealed the win in emphatic trend with a six straight down the bottom.
“Fairly pleased with method issues went, good to spend time within the center and get the win,” Conway mentioned.
“The communication within the partnerships have been nice. I all the time take pleasure in batting with Daryl, we complement one another nicely. It made my job straightforward, simply getting him on strike. Lengthy could it proceed.”
England had began nicely as Harry Brook (25) and Malan (54) stitched collectively a gap partnership of 80.
After the openers departed within the span of simply 5 balls, Stokes, who reversed his retirement from ODI cricket forward of England’s title defence on the 50-overs World Cup in India, stepped in to attain 52 and preserve the momentum going.
Captain Buttler (72) and Livingstone (52) then mixed for 77, however after the 2 have been dismissed by Tim Southee in the identical over, England’s tail was unable to take them previous 300.
“Disappointing. Thought we had a reasonably good rating at midway… Credit score to them, it was a implausible partnership and we couldn’t discover a approach to break it,” Buttler mentioned.
“We tried most issues, for just a little interval we constructed strain and pushed the speed to simply beneath seven, however Daryl Mitchell performed some large pictures and took it away from us. Sensible partnership.”
Although the hosts had some robust batting performances, they misplaced wickets at common intervals.
Rachin Ravindra was the choose of New Zealand’s bowlers, choosing up three wickets for 48, his finest figures up to now in his fledgling ODI profession.
The second match of the four-game collection will likely be performed on the Rose Bowl in Southampton on Sunday.