The real England finally turned up as they produced a fine performance to keep their T20 World Cup hopes alive by beating New Zealand by 20 runs in Brisbane.
With the pressure well and truly piled on one of the pre-tournament favourites, after their shock defeat to Ireland and the untimely wash out against Australia left them needing to win their two remaining games to have any chance of reaching the semi-finals, England finally caught fire as they avoided a repeat of last year’s semi-final defeat to beat the table-topping Kiwis.
Captain Jos Buttler led from the front as his brilliant 73, off just 47 balls, powered his side to a very competitive 179/6 on a tricky surface in a crunch clash for their final four bid.
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And then the bowlers came to the fore. A superb 91-run partnership between Kane Williamson and Glenn Phillips, who smashed four fours and three sixes in his destructive 36-ball 62, threatened to essentially knock England out.
But some fine death bowling, especially from left-armer Sam Curran — who became the leading wicket-taker in the Super 12s phase as his miserly 2/26 took him to nine wickets for the tournament — secured a confidence-boosting victory as England lived to fight another day.
Buttler’s side go into Saturday’s final group game with their fate well and truly in their own hands with victory over Sri Lanka, if Australia don’t overhaul a big net run-rate deficit against Afghanistan, enough to send them through.
Matthew Mott’s side have the advantage over the Aussies because they will head into the crucial clash in Sydney knowing exactly what they need to do with the hosts playing on Friday.
Relieved Buttler, who became England’s highest ever T20I run scorer, beamed: “I said at the toss you don’t become a bad team overnight. We had one bad performance, but we were still confident because we’ve got some quality cricketers in that dressing room.
“It’s a really ruthless tournament. It’s tough to get through. It’s what you expect from World Cup cricket, you expect to be under pressure and expect to have to beat the best teams.”
Buttler was fortunate at times during his 18th T20I half century. First opposition captain Williamson shelled a diving catch over his shoulder, with Buttler recalled after an umpire’s review, before Daryl Mitchell spilled a drilled effort on the deep square boundary.
Opening partner Alex Hales finally found his feet and hit 52 off 40 balls himself in a fast start for England. Once Hales departed, Buttler put his foot on the gas and set his side up for a grandstand finish.
But the Kiwi seamers clawed England back from a mega total with a flurry of late wickets to set up an intriguing run chase.
It was clever captaincy from Buttler early on as he used his knowledge of batting for the majority of the first innings to deploy spin early on. He used five different bowlers in the six-over powerplay to stop the Kiwi batters from settling on a worn pitch.
It paid dividends early on as Woakes dismissed Conway, with a good catch from Buttler, before Curran also sent Allen packing early on with his eighth wicket of the tournament.
But disaster struck as ill-discipline frustratingly started to creep into the English side. Moeen Ali dropped an absolute sitter after powerful Glenn Phillips was outfoxed by Adil Rashid on 15 and some sloppy fielding allowed New Zealand to stay in touch.
That moment proved costly. Momentum started to shift as Phillips targeted the short boundary to smash Rashid for two massive back-to-back sixes in the 14th over. Stokes finally got the much-needed breakthrough as the potentially match-defining partnership of 91 between Williamson and Phillips was broken when the former departed for a run-a-ball 40.
Then came the squeeze as New Zealand slumped from 119/2 to 135/6 when nerveless Curran had Phillips caught at the long on boundary. With that wicket the game was done.
Williamson said: “Credit to the way England played, they put us under pressure from the get-go. We struggled to make those breakthroughs. Hats off to the way England played, they were clinical.
“You don’t want to give Jos too many lives. He’s one of, if not the best, white-ball player in the game. If you give him chances, he’s going to punish you and he did. The boundaries are big here, but he made them look small at times.”
Match Scorecard (England won by 20 runs)
England: 179/6 (20): Buttler 73 (47), Hales 52 (40)
New Zealand: 159/6 (20): Phillips 62 (36), Williamson 40 (40); Curran 2/26, Woakes 2/34
