A brutal knock of 182 from Ben Stokes and 96 run-knock from Dawid Malan followed by lethal bowling spell from Chris Woakes and Liam Livingstone helped England beat New Zealand by a huge margin of 181 runs despite a five-fer from Trent Boult. With the win, England lead the series 2-1.
Speaking about the game, the coin spun in the visitor’s favour as they opted to field first. England had an awful start as Trent Boult struck in the very first ball packing Jonny Bairstow while Joe Root was cleaned up by Boult for 4 runs leaving England at 13/2 in the third over. The duo of Dawid Malan and Ben Stokes went berserk against the NZ bowlers with their counter-attacks, adding a record 199 runs for the third wicket.
Malan got to his half-century in the course of the partnership while Stokes registered his fourth century and highest score by an English batter in ODIs. Stokes ended his innings with a score of 182 off just 124 balls which included 15 fours and 9 maximums before getting dismissed to Ben Lister. The cameo from Jos Buttler (38 off 24) down the order helped England post a massive total of 368 in 48.1 overs. For New Zealand, Trent Boult was the go-to bowler for his spell of 5/51 in 9.1 overs.
Chasing 369, New Zealand batters did not live up to their expectations as the duo of Reece Topley and Chris Woakes rattled the top order with fiery spells, with Woakes picking three of the four wickets leaving New Zealand in a spot of bother at 37/4. The duo of Glenn Phillips and Daryl Mitchell added 33 runs for the fifth wicket before Mitchell became the first victim of Sam Curran.
Phillips was the only batter who looked comfortable with the bat scoring 72 runs off 76 balls while all the other batters could not contribute to the chase, and eventually got bowled out for 187. England won the game by 181 runs to go 2-1 up in the four-match ODI series.
Let us look at the stats and numbers from the 3rd ODI between England and New Zealand
182 -Ben Stokes registered the highest score of 182 by an England batter in ODI bettering the previous best set by Jason Roy (180) against Australia in 2018.
182 -The score of 182 is the highest score for Ben Stokes in ODI, bettering his previous best of 102* against Australia in 2017
1 -Ben Stokes’ 182 is the highest score by a batter in Oval in ODIs. The previous best was 176* scored by Evin Lewis against England in 2017.
368 -Total of 368 from England is the second-highest total by any team in The Oval. The highest total of 398/5 was scored by New Zealand against England in 2015.
6 -Trent Boult registered his sixth five wicket-haul, the most by a New Zealand bowler in ODIs bettering Richard Hadlee’s tally of 5.
2 -The total of 368 scored by England is their second-highest total against New Zealand in ODI. Their highest total of 408 came at Birmingham in 2015.
199 -Ben Stokes and Dawid Malan registered a partnership of 199 runs for the third wicket which is the highest partnership by an England batting pair against New Zealand for third wicket in ODIs.
181 -New Zealand lost the game by 181 runs, their second-largest defeat against England in ODIs. They lost against England in 2015 in Birmingham by a margin of 210 runs.