New Zealand beat England by 3 wickets in yet another high-scorer, lead 2-1

Southampton, June 15: New Zealand beat England by 3 wickets at The Rose Bowl here on Sunday in what turned out to be another high-scoring encounter in the 5-match series. The Kiwis have now taken a 2-1 lead over England after losing the first match by 210 runs.

English captain Eoin Morgan won the toss and elected to bat in the third one-day and led from the front. He hit 71 off 82 balls and was given company by Ben Stokes (68) and Joe Root (54). The hosts were looking good to past 350 for the third successive time in the series but lost their last 5 wickets within just 14 runs. They were all out for 302 in 45.2 overs.

The Kiwis lost both their openers with 36 on the board but Kane Williamson (118) and Ross Taylor (110) powered them to 242 in 32 overs. It was Taylor's second consecutive hundred in the series, something which he has done three times in his career now.

The partnership also eclipsed the 31-year record of Geoff Howarth and Martin Crowe in putting up the highest partnership for the third wicket.

However, the Kiwis found it not so smooth from there on as their batsmen took 10 overs to score 64 runs to take a lead over the hosts. Debutant Ben Wheeler and Tim Southee, who shared 6 wickets between them while bowling, took New Zealand home in the 49th over.

For England, David Willey took 3 wickets for 69 runs while Ben Stokes took 2 wickets for 35 runs.

Adil Rashid, who has been playing well in the series, couldn't repeat it today as he got out for just 1 and took 1 wicket for 72 runs in 10 overs.

Williamson was adjudged the man of the match.

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