Riding on the scintillating bowling display from debutant Brydon Carse, England trounced New Zealand by seven wickets to claim the T20I series opener at Chester-le-Street on Wednesday, August 30. Carse playing at his home ground, on debut, produced a magnificent spell (3/23) of pace bowling and claimed a three-for to help the Jos Buttler-led side restrict the visitors to a below-par score of 139 and was awarded the Player of the Match for the same.
Buttler called it right at the toss and elected to field first - his decision was substantiated by his pacers including Carse and Luke Wood. Wood obliterated the top order of the Kiwis and didn't give them any reprieve whatsoever. However, he turned out to be slightly more expensive as compared to other bowlers, the hosts certainly didn't mind it.
Wood got the better of Devon Conway, Tim Seifert and Glenn Phillips at the top and broke the back of New Zealand's top-order batting. Phillips was the only batter apart from Finn Allen (21 off 15) who looked like propelling the Tim Southee-led side to more than a decent total but it didn't turn out to be the case. The performances from the left-arm pacer Wood and right-arm quick Carse displayed the bench strength of the English team. Despite losing two impressive quicks to injuries in the form of John Turner and Josh Tongue, the hosts never looked off the radar during the fixture.
While chasing the total, the Three Lions lost opener Jonny Bairstow soon but praiseworthy batting efforts from the southpaw Dawid Malan (54 off 42) and Harry Brook (43* off 27) propelled them home. Malan took his time and anchored the chase really well before getting out in the 13th over with the hosts within touching distance of victory. Brook, in particular, batted with a lot of flair and struck two fours and three sixes during his unbeaten knock to help the English team draw first blood in the four-match series.
