A game played on a turning wicket and dominated by spin was decided, appropriately, after a decisive, savage twist. Just as it looked as if England’s unconvincing progress through the World Cup was the one thing destined to remain on its predictable path Rehan Ahmed and Will Jacks spun the game, and the group, in their team’s favour.
England’s pursuit of a target of 160 was appearing increasingly forlorn until its 18th over, bowled by Glenn Phillips, which started with them needing an improbable 43 off 18 and ended, two sixes and a couple of fours later, with a manageable 21 required off 12. Ahmed started the next with another boundary to keep the momentum going and before the penultimate delivery the batters conferred. “I said: ‘I’ll get a single and you just have a free hit,’” Jacks said; he got his single and Ahmed deposited the final delivery into the stands. “That six pretty much won us the game,” said Jacks.
England were left needing five off the last over. It took them three balls to wrap up victory by four wickets.
So England added another to their collection of narrow wins and the question now is whether accumulating so many of them is down to luck or quality. “It’s probably the latter,” said Mitchell Santner, the New Zealand captain. “If you can get yourself out of tricky positions and end up winning games it does wonders for your confidence. There’s no better team than one that fights and finds a way of winning. There’s several guys stepping up at different times as well, which is what you need. I wouldn’t want to be facing them in the semi-finals.”
For Ahmed it was a stunning introduction to the tournament. Picked ahead of Jamie Overton because of his ability to bowl spin and, with bat in hand, to punish it, he took two wickets in three overs, and scored 19 off seven balls. Meanwhile, Jacks was England’s match-winner once again, also taking two wickets – and conceding only 23 runs from four overs – before hitting 32 off 18 balls.
England have played seven games at this tournament and this was Jacks’ fourth player-of-the-match award. That he keeps having to produce match-winning contributions from No 7 is a source of concern, but the fact that he is actually producing them is a source of encouragement. “Ideally I would do nothing,” Jacks said. “I’m kind of the extra bowler and the extra batter. If I don’t bowl and don’t bat, we’ll have had that perfect game that we keep speaking about.”
New Zealand’s defeat gives Pakistan, who play Sri Lanka on Saturday, hope of stealing a semi-final place with an emphatic win, even if the required result – victory by 64 runs, or a chase completed in 13.1 overs – seems unlikely. England will almost certainly play their semi-final in Mumbai on Thursday, against whichever team wins Sunday’s meeting between India and West Indies.
This game’s thrilling conclusion did not quite expunge the memories of what preceded it and in particular the continued travails of England’s top order. For the second game in a row both openers were caught behind having scored two and none. Matt Henry, due to depart Sri Lanka imminently to be with his wife, Holly, for the birth of their second child, produced a screaming delivery to dismiss Phil Salt, caught behind four balls into England’s innings.
Then Lockie Ferguson did likewise to account for Jos Buttler, whose two-ball duck means he has now scored 15 off 27 across his past five innings, continued the abject form for which platitudes about the inevitability of his clicking back into gear feel increasingly insufficient.
“Whoever we play in the semi-finals it’s going to be a hell of an atmosphere and a hell of an occasion and that brings out the best in certain players,” Jacks said. “I know [some of] the guys have struggled for runs. Those guys play well in those situations and they’ve done it before.”
The game started poorly for England, with them failing, for the first time, to take a wicket in the powerplay and with New Zealand scoring freely. In another first England bowled 16 overs of spin and the run rate slowed markedly in the middle overs as the ball started to grip and turn with increasing extravagance. Phillips in particular may still be wondering how a Jacks delivery that was angled innocently across him ended up hitting middle and off, and it was not the last time he was to experience things spinning out of his control.
