The visitor had been in danger of not seeing out their full allocation before Tom Curran scored an important 22 not out, which included four successive boundaries in the final over. The host's run chase had looked to be doomed at two for two in the third over after both Martin Guptill and Colin Munro were dismissed for ducks before captain Kane Williamson (45) and Taylor combined for 84 runs. Taylor and Latham, who had a 178-run partnership in the first match, then rebuilt New Zealand's run chase only for Taylor to hurt himself again while diving to make his ground after he had passed 100 for the 19th time. He was then restricted from running anything other than easy singles and instead looked to hit the ball to the fence. Colin de Grandhomme added a quickfire 23 before Henry Nicholls hit a six in the final over to give the host a remarkable victory. The deciding game is at Hagley Oval in Christchurch Saturday.
BRIEF SCORE New Zealand 339/5 in 49.3 overs (Taylor 181*, Latham 71) beat England 335/9 (Bairstow 138, Root 102) by five wicketsHighest scores outside top-3 batting positions in ODIs: 189* Viv Richards v Eng, 1984 181* Ross Taylor v Eng, today 181 Viv Richards v SL, 1987 Today is Richards' birthday, tomorrow is Taylor's birthday. #NZvEng
— Bharath Seervi (@SeerviBharath) March 7, 2018
Leave a Comment