England beat New Zealand to end home summer undefeated

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.