Innings break England 222 (Overton 68, Tickner 4-64, Duffy 3-56) vs New Zealand

England suffered their third consecutive batting embarrassment against New Zealand before Jamie Overton’s defiant 68 off 62 balls lifted them to 222 all out at Sky Stadium in Wellington. Zak Foulkes, Jacob Duffy and Blair Tickner combined for nine wickets, with Overton’s maiden ODI fifty the only real positive on another sorry England card.

Having already conceded the series, 2-0 with one to play, there was to be no revival in fortunes for England side with more than one eye on the Ashes. At 40.2 overs this was their longest innings of the three, but it hardly suggested a batting unit coming into form.

Inserted for the third game running, they plunged to 44 for 5 with none of the top four reaching double-figures. A 53-run stand between Jos Buttler and Sam Curran helped save some face before Overton and Brydon Carse combined for 58 from 50 balls down the order. Overton struck 10 fours and two sixes in his highest List A score, but the target for New Zealand still looked light.

England had actually been in a worse position in the first ODI when falling to 33 for 5, only for Harry Brook’s incendiary 135 from to give them a similar score to bowl at. Brook, England’s captain, suggested his team-mates could have gone a bit harder, to knock New Zealand “off their lengths”; here, however, he was caught at second slip looking to defend as England were again found wanting in ideal conditions for seam and swing.

Foulkes followed up his 4 for 41 on debut in Mount Maunganui by striking with his fourth ball. Jamie Smith had already nearly been bowled by a lavish in-ducker as he looked to attack from the off, then feathered behind looking to cut – although it required DRS to detect the edge.

Ben Duckett swung Duffy into the boundary boards for a sixth in the third over, but Foulkes was at it again in his next, pinning Joe Root with an inswinger that might have kept a touch low. Duckett then toe-ended a swipe off Duffy to mid-on and when Brook nicked a Duffy outswinger, England were 31 for 4 inside the powerplay.

It meant that England set a world record for the fewest runs scored by a team’s top four batters (84) in an ODI series, where they batted at least three times.

Buttler was lucky to survive another peach from Duffy first ball, and was regularly beaten in the early exchanges, while Jacob Bethell worked hard to contend with Foulkes straightening the ball from round the wicket. Bethell did almost run himself out, before becoming the first England batter into double-figures with a slash to third. But another waft outside off from the first ball outside the powerplay saw him off, courtesy a flying catch from Daryl Mitchell at slip.

With Duffy and Foulkes bowling unchanged through the first 14 overs, England finally opted to retrench through Buttler and Curran. Having picked off a couple of early boundaries, Buttler had eked his way to 11 off 31 balls before striking the first-change bowler, Nathan Smith, through long-off.

In Smith’s third over, Buttler charged his first ball to hit four more down the ground, then scooped another through fine leg. He started the next over, from Tickner, by again hitting back-to-back boundaries, before Curran’s pull for four off Smith brought up the fifty stand from 62 balls.

Tickner broke through, a combination of pad and inside edge taking the ball on to Curran’s stumps. The same bowler then bowled Buttler in more emphatic fashion, nipping a full delivery inside an expansive drive to topple off stump.

Overton had got off the mark with a pulled four, and his third scoring shot was a flat six that punched a hole in the low wall around the boundary. Carse then joined the counterattack, slog-sweeping Mitchell Santner for back-to-back sixes and then meting out the same treatment to Smith, hooking fine and then into the crowd over deep square leg to race into the 30s.

Carse only added one more run, top-edging a swipe high into the covers, and Jofra Archer managed a couple of boundaries before holing out to mid-on as Tickner claimed his second consecutive four-for. But Overton was motoring, and he added a brace of fours of Duffy followed by back-to-back thumps off Tickner to raise a run-a-ball half-century – his first in List A cricket, coming off the back of a career-best 46 in the first ODI – as England’s last-wicket yielded 36 runs.