McCullum’s decision to bat first after winning the toss was completely justified. Beginning with an opening wicket stand of 88 between himself and Martin Guptill, the innings flourished with every Kiwi batsman contributing significantly. McCullum himself didn’t last longer than his 31-ball 35 but Guptill crossed fifty and Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Grant Elliott ad Mitchell Santner all added to the New Zealand’s final total of 349/7. In the ODI format, such score can out-rightly be termed as a strongly challenging total, whoever might be the opponent. Even Brendon McCullum, who has seen many seasons in his long and illustrious cricketing career, could not have foreseen the shape of things to come, when England came on to chase.
To McCullum’s surprise, England’s openers Alex Hales and Jason Roy began explosively and raced to 97/0 in the 10 power-play overs. New Zealand bowlers failed to impress Hales and Roy during their partnership of 100 runs. There was a little glitch in the 11th and the 13th overs, when both openers departed in quick succession. However, if New Zealand harbored any hope of a turnaround, that remained confined to wishful thinking. Eoin Morgan and Joe Root took over from Hales and Roy. The two batsmen blasted the Kiwi bowlers and went on until 309 in the 40th over, when Morgan got out after scoring 113 off 82 balls with 12 fours and 5 sixes. Root continued with Ben Stokes until the end and took England to a 7-wicket victory with 36 balls still remaining in the innings. Root ended with an unbeaten 106 off 97 balls and made the win look like a child’s play. With the ODI series standing at 2-2, the fifth match on Saturday could be a cracker of a game. England would like to reaffirm their newly acquired ODI superiority while McCullum would prefer to head home with at least an ODI series win in his pocket, though a solitary T20 game at Manchester still remains after that.