Will Jacks and Rehan Ahmed send England towards T20 World Cup semi-finals on a winning note
THE suspicion that England had limped into the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup was not without foundation but here was a confidence-boosting victory in their final Super Eights game.
Against a good New Zealand team - albeit with the pressure off after passage to the last four had already been achieved - England took down their opponents’ 159-7 to win by four wickets with three balls left.
Will Jacks, with 32 from 18 balls and Rehan Ahmed with 19 from seven were the heroes, their unbroken stand off 44 from 16 leaving the Kiwis sweating on their own semi-final place.
If Pakistan beat Sri Lanka in Pallekele on Saturday, it will come down to net run-rate as to whether Pakistan or New Zealand play South Africa in the first semi-final on Wednesday, while England head to Mumbai to take on India or West Indies, who meet on Sunday, in Thursday’s second semi-final.
Harry Brook, the England captain, said he was thrilled to get through but insisted there was still room for improvement despite this fine win.
“We still haven’t played that perfect game,” said Brook. “We haven’t had the starts we’d like with bat or ball.
“But we’ve managed to get over the line in some very close games, and I think in World Cups that holds you in very good stead.
“Whoever we play next is going to be tough, and we’ve just got to go out there and do the little things well.”
England lost the toss – Brook would also have batted – but started the match ideally, Jofra Archer beginning with a maiden. He almost had a wicket with his fifth ball, Tim Seifert adjudged caught behind but reprieved on review.
Seifert and Finn Allen settled into their work, raising a 50 stand in 5.2 overs, but two quick wickets left the Kiwis 66-2: Seifert was stumped swinging at Adil Rashid, then Allen lazily lofted Jacks to deep mid-wicket.
New Zealand were 84-2 at halfway and then slipped to 97-3 when Ahmed – on World Cup debut in place of Jamie Overton – had Rachin Ravindra caught at deep mid-wicket with his first delivery: a rank long-hop.
Rashid won another stumping when Mark Chapman ran down and missed a leg-break, and New Zealand lost further impetus when Daryl Mitchell lofted Liam Dawson to long-off. Glenn Phillips then perished for the top-score of 39 from 28, bowled trying to carve a sharply-turning off-break from Jacks to leave the score 135-6 in the 18th.
Ahmed bowled an advancing Cole McConchie in the final over, New Zealand managing only 75-5 in the second half of their innings, with all of their wickets falling during 16 overs of spin.
Their total still felt competitive, and England’s reply was soon in strife, openers Phil Salt and Jos Buttler out to the fourth and eighth balls respectively.
Salt tried to drive Matt Henry and was caught behind - as was Buttler for a second-ball duck when he fenced at one from Lockie Ferguson.
Thus Buttler’s miserable competition continued, England’s greatest-ever white-ball batsman having mustered only 62 runs so far in seven innings.
Brook, fresh from his sensational hundred against Pakistan, hammered Henry for an offside four and then flicked him for an outrageous leg-side six into the replay screen.
Another brutal cover-drive off Ferguson followed as Brook helped England to 47-2 at the end of the powerplay, but he fell to the first ball of the eighth over when, in trying to go over the offside again, he hoisted off-spinner Phillips’s first ball into the hands of long off, departing for 26 from 24.
England fell to 58-4 in the next over when Jacob Bethell pulled left-arm spinner’s Ravindra’s fourth delivery to deep mid-wicket where Phillips, one of the world’s finest fielders, charged in to take a terrific low catch.
Not even Phillips could hold on to a blistering return offered by Tom Banton on 16 with the score 80-4 in the 12th, but he wrapped his hands around another when Sam Curran pulled Ravindra to deep mid-wicket as England slid to 100-5 in the 15th.
When Banton pulled Ravindra to Chapman at deep mid-wicket two overs later to depart for the top score of 33 from 24, Ravindra finishing with 3-19, it looked curtains for England.
But with 43 wanted from the last three overs, Ahmed and Jacks traded sixes off Phillips as 22 came from his final over. Ahmed lofted Mitchell Santner for another six over long-off to leave five runs needed from the final over.
After some unconvincing performances hitherto, this was more like it from England.