uk 160 to 4 (Knight 63, Boucher 43) win New Zealand 5 points 133 points (Bates 65 points, Bell 2-29 points) 27 points difference
New Zealand will look to be boosted by the return of two stars for their next match in Nelson, while England’s WPL players Alice Capsey, Sophie Eccleston, Nat Syber-Brunt and Danny Wyatt will not feature in the series until after the third game.
Dunkley provides the initial stimulus.
On either side of the Powerplay ending, Dunkley initially scored 11 runs from 14 balls before striding. She found boundaries twice in the sixth and seventh overs against Rowe and Rosemary Mair, and the 27 runs were enough to energize England’s innings. Dunkley got the motor going when she took the sixth boundary, but Lea Tahuhu hit the next ball with a short delivery that was top-edged behind.
Knight passes through gear
At the halfway point, England were 72-2 with Knight and Boucher trying to set the platform. Knight took a while to get going, and she got eight off 10 balls before claiming her first boundary with a powerful straight drive from Jess Kerr. Then she got up and ran.
The England captain needed just 23 more deliveries to score his half-century off 33 balls, including a six-run effort from Tahuhu in the 18th over, which resulted in 18 runs. At that point, England could have easily scored 170, but New Zealand held their innings in the last two overs to just 11 runs.
A three-wicket stand of 91 runs from 64 balls came to an end when Knight swatted Jess’s full deliveries past him. Bouchier, who was dropped on 26 and 37, was initially sat by Maddy Green in the middle and finished with a career-best in T20Is, but unlike Knight, he was unable to improve the scoring rate in the same way.
Bates has too much left
Lauren Bell came to bat in the first over and had Easy Gaze caught on the second ball (she could have been run out on the first), but Bates, instead of the captain, held New Zealand to a similar level of performance as England in the powerplay: 44-1.
Bates challenged debutant quick Lauren Piller’s opening over with three boundaries – a powerful clip, a big top edge to third and a blazing edge across the on-side – but England’s spinners, including Knight, worked harder and the other batsmen failed to get the required rate of runs.
George Plimmer had a brief chance before he spurred Sarah Glenn to short fine leg, and Green was quiet as the pace increased early in the innings. Green’s stay ended in somewhat unfortunate circumstances when Bates spurted a straight drive to Charlie Dean, who bounced off the non-striker’s stumps at very short.
Bates barely kept New Zealand alive before opting for deep square leg to score 65 off 51 balls, at which point 52 runs were needed from the last three overs. The trio of Plimmer, Green and Brooke Holiday made 56 off 61 balls.
Andrew McGlashan is the deputy editor of ESPNcricinfo.
