England’s biggest summer got off to an underwhelming start at Chester-le-Street, as they limped to a one-wicket win in the first one-day international against New Zealand, chasing just 211.
Only a calm rearguard effort from the stand-in captain, Charlie Dean, who finished unbeaten on 31 and valiantly marshalled England’s long tail, enabled them to crawl across the line.
England played the way you might expect from a team who have gone 194 days without an international (their last outing was the World Cup semi-final in October). First, they made a spate of fielding errors, costing them precious runs in a low-scoring thriller. Then they subsided to 149 for six, after Emma Lamb, Amy Jones and Dani Gibson all holed out to gleeful fielders.
Freya Kemp managed 30 and was unlucky to be run out backing up, while Maia Bouchier struck a half-century – despite being included in the squad only as cover for the injured Nat Sciver-Brunt.
Bouchier, though, miscued a catch to midwicket in the 35th over and it looked as if England’s decision to field a lineup with in effect three No 11s – Lauren Bell, Lauren Filer and debutant Tilly Corteen-Coleman – might come back to haunt them.
But Bell smashed two unlikely boundaries before being yorked by Rosemary Mair. The 18-year-old Corteen-Coleman then ran hard and struck three golden singles leaving Dean, who survived a drop by Nensi Patel at backward point in the 47th over which would have handed New Zealand the win, to smoke the winning run through the covers with 10 balls to spare.
“We didn’t make it easy for ourselves,” Dean told Sky Sports, before praising Corteen-Coleman. “She came in with a plan. She takes everything in her stride. She held her nerve and was brilliant.”
Dean is attempting to prove her case as Sciver-Brunt’s long-term replacement as skipper, while the latter sits out this series with a calf injury. This performance will have done her claim a lot of good, after the off-spinner earlier picked up two wickets, coming round the wicket to good effect and correctly invoking DRS to see off Brooke Halliday.
Dean added that England, who have suffered a spate of injuries of late, needed to embrace “flexibility”. On Sunday the seamer Issy Wong pulled up with hamstring tightness during the warm-up, and was replaced by Filer, while news broke during play that Em Arlott has been sent home with concussion.
Charlotte Edwards, the head coach, had kept her promise to focus on the future, naming three ODI debutants. Gibson had already played 22 T20s but the inclusion of Corteen-Coleman and the 21-year-old Jodi Grewcock suggested the first rumblings of the generational shift which we will no doubt see more of later in the year – especially if (perish the thought) England crash and burn out of their home T20 World Cup.
Maddy Green struck a sedate 88 – her fifth score of 50+ in her last seven ODI innings – but could not provide the late acceleration needed to elevate the total. She was caught at long-on, amid a collapse in which the visitors lost their last six wickets for 27 runs.
Melie Kerr said: “If we’d got to 250 we could have cruised it, with a bit more scoreboard pressure to have bowled to. [But] when you come to a game like today and you’re under par, to then take it as deep as we did shows fight and character.”
The left-arm spinner Corteen-Coleman celebrated her maiden international wicket with pure joy, after forcing an error from Georgia Plimmer, caught at mid-off trying to go over the top. Leggie Grewcock’s own maiden scalp was a bigger wicket – she broke the century partnership between Green and Kerr by having the latter caught on the ring. But it came from a worse ball, a rank full toss and her celebrations were tinged with sheepish embarrassment.
Oddly, Grewcock was then asked to open the batting – something of a surprise, given she bats at No 3 or No 4 for Essex in 50-over cricket. She departed for three, opting selflessly not to review the leg-before dismissal from Bree Illing which replays showed would have drifted down leg.
It could have proved costly had it not been for the calm head of Dean. Even so, with five weeks still to go until the World Cup, it feels early in the summer for England to have already played their get-out-of-jail-free card.
