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Fifth T20, Lord’s

England 155-7 (20 overs): Knight 46* (31), Jonas 4-22

class=”ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3″>New Zealand 135-8 (20 overs): A Kerr 43 (36), Bell 3-20

England won by 20 runs, win series 5-0

England cruised to a comfortable 20-run victory over New Zealand at Lord’s to end their home-grown run of unbeaten.

The White Ferns’ batting woes, which have plagued them throughout the series, continued as they were only able to manage 135-8, set 156 to win.

With a strong all-round performance, fellow seamer Freya Kemp and spinner Charlie Dean took two wickets each in a strong performance.

The win secures a 5-0 clean sweep for England, and was preceded by a dominant 3-0 one-day international series win.

Earlier, the visitors put in their best performance in the field, reducing England to 61-4, but could not capitalise as captain Heather Knight’s unbeaten 46 took the game away.

With 4-22, Fran Jonas led with the wicket of Danni Wyatt from the opening ball of the match, and Nathan Sciver-Brunt was the only one to score for 16 while Eden Carson, a fellow spinner, recorded a 30-23 total.

However, the regular wickets, especially the few overs of pace, were inconsistent, which eased England’s pressure and kept them from posting what would have been their T20 series highest score.

Amelia Kerr’s 43 was the highest score, followed by the well-known middle-order stumble, which resulted in five wickets falling for just 27 runs. The batting line-up was so low on confidence.

England have won 13 games in a summer away from home for the first time since 2002, surpassing their previous record of 12 with a total white-ball victory over Pakistan and New Zealand.

With England looking confident ahead of the World Cup and having a washout against Pakistan in May, it is fair to say that neither series has been a challenge.

It speaks volumes that even after New Zealand’s most competitive year, it still came out in a complete defeat.

They did manage to somewhat silence the healthy Lord’s crowd, including a sold-out pavilion, when Wyatt holed out to mid-wicket first ball and several soft dismissals fell to the spinners.

Maia Bouchier chipped to mid-on for 13, Sciver-Brunt was victim to a sensational one-handed caught and bowled, Alice Capsey was tamely stumped for 25 and Amy Jones was caught at long-on.

Before a flurry of boundaries in the final two overs saw the score drop past 150, Knight remained as England’s rock, surviving the pressure with smart running between the wickets.

England chased down New Zealand’s previous highest score in the series with four wickets to spare, demonstrating the breadth of the task at hand.

In contrast to England, who had Dean putting in a valuable 24 from 19 balls from the eighth, Brooke Halliday was the only batter to add 20 in support of Amelia Kerr.

England captain Heather Knight on BBC Two: “Really pleased. We discussed whether we wanted to finish this summer strong.

” We’ve talked about nailing teams when they’re on top and we’ve done that. I’m a very happy captain. “

Frankie Mackay, a former New Zealand all-rounder, said on BBC Two: “I think this England side’s cricket is brilliant right now.

Birmingham City will start their first season in England’s third tier for 29 years with a home match against Reading, while Wrexham will host Wycombe Wanderers on the Welsh club’s return to League One.

Huddersfield Town and Rotherham United, the two sides relegated from the Championship with Birmingham, will travel to Peterborough United and Exeter City respectively to kick off their campaigns at 17:30 BST on Saturday, 10 August.

League Two title winners Stockport County will host Cambridge United on the opening day, while Mansfield Town, who went up automatically alongside the Hatters and Wrexham, will head to Barnsley for the first game of the new League One season on Friday, 9 August.

Crawley Town, who beat Crewe Alexandra in the League Two play off final to seal promotion in May, will face Blackpool in one of the 11 third-tier games kicking off at 17:30 BST on the first Saturday.

Matches across the three English Football League divisions will be staggered that day, with Championship games kicking off earlier, at 12:30 BST, and League Two games taking the traditional 15:00 BST slot.

All of the opening round of fixtures in all three divisions will be broadcast live on Sky Sports as part of their new £935m five-year deal with the EFL.

The first midweek league fixtures of the campaign follow seven weeks later on Tuesday, 1 October.

Barnsley v Mansfield Town (Friday, 9 August 20:00 BST)

Birmingham City v Reading

Bristol Rovers v Northampton Town

Burton Albion v Lincoln City

Crawley Town v Blackpool

Exeter City v Rotherham United

Leyton Orient v Bolton Wanderers

Peterborough United v Huddersfield Town

Stevenage v Shrewsbury Town

Stockport County v Cambridge United

Wigan Athletic v Charlton Athletic

Wrexham v Wycombe Wanderers

For Wrexham, it will be their first season in League One for 19 years, while fellow promoted clubs Mansfield and Stockport also end long absences – 21 and 15 years respectively – from the division.

While it took 15 years for Wrexham to get out of the National League, the Hollywood-backed Welsh club bounded through League Two at their first attempt to win promotion as runners-up to Stockport last season.

Wrexham’s back-to-back promotions from non-league football has been chronicled in a popular television docuseries, which has been commissioned for a fourth season, as owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney continue their quest to get the club to the Championship.

Their match against Birmingham, a club which NFL legend Tom Brady has a minority share in, drew huge attention even before fixtures were released, with it being reported that the EFL turned down a request to move to the game to the United States.

Blues will host Wrexham on Saturday, 14 September, with the reverse fixture on Saturday, 25 January.

Relegated sides Birmingham and Huddersfield are two of seven League One teams that have played in the Premier League in the past 17 years.

Bolton are again among that group of highly-fancied former top-flight clubs trying to now get back to the Championship. They narrowly missed out on automatic promotion before then being beaten in the play-off final by Oxford.

The Trotters travel to Leyton Orient first up next season.

Wigan and Reading, two clubs that dropped out of the Premier League together 11 years ago and have since grappled with financial problems, will start their campaigns against Charlton Athletic and Birmingham respectively.

Wigan started last season on minus eight points because of their financial woes and finished mid-table, while the Royals’ first season in the third tier for 21 years was a turbulent one as they were deducted six points for their financial problems, while owner Dai Yongge began efforts to sell the club.

One takeover bid at Reading collapsed earlier in the summer, forcing the club to move on to talk to potential new suitors in early June.

Great Britain won men’s and women’s team pursuit gold as the final round of the 2024 Track Nations Cup got under way in Milton, Canada.

Katie Archibald, Jessica Roberts, Josie Knight and Anna Morris defeated Italy by more than six seconds despite trailing for much of the women’s race.

Ethan Hayter, Dan Bigham, Ethan Vernon and Ollie Wood then sealed the men’s gold by catching Belgium.

GB’s Jack Carlin, Ed Lowe and Hamish Turnbull won team sprint silver.

The British trio were beaten to the line by 0.85 seconds by the Netherlands line-up that won gold at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and last year’s World Championships.

There was also an earlier bronze for Mark Stewart in the elimination race, with Canada’s Dylan Bibic taking gold in front of his home crowd.