England once again went down in the ODI series as they were whitewashed by New Zealand for the first time in 42 years. They had their moments, but familiar problems came back to haunt them at a crucial juncture. Repeated mistakes meant they kept losing the key moments. Yes, it didn’t help them batting first in challenging conditions, but losing the series 0-3 is not ideal and they have loads of areas to work on. We will try and enlist three reasons why they lost this particular game.
Losing half the side in 10.1 overs dents England badly.Â
It has been the age old problem for England especially in this series and not just this series for quite a while. That is the reason why they are not doing well in ODIs. Losing early wickets and wickets in clusters really dents any side and England were no different. What surprises many is the approach they are taking and not assessing the conditions. They always want to attack and that’s why they paid the price yet again.
Jamie Smith fell early and Joe Root followed him back to the hut soon for low scores. Ben Duckett too couldn’t hang around and gave his wicket away while captain Harry Brook had a rare failure today. Jacob Bethell survived the powerplay, but fell in the first ball of the 11th over. England have been guilty of not batting 50 overs and that trend continued in this series as well. How will one bat 50 overs if they lose half their side by 10-11 overs. It means England were already playing catch-up which is not an easy thing to do. Yes, they recovered through Jamie Overton later on and made 222 from 102/7. But the top-order misfiring is a huge concern for England.
Going forward whenever they next play an ODI which will be most likely next year, England must address their top order woes which has been repeated in this series again and as a result they haven’t played out 50 overs. In fact, they have played the most number of overs in this game i.e. 40.2 overs and have gone progressively better from the first two games, but nowhere near enough. England have been bowled out for 8 off the last 18 games and that is a sorry state of affairs.
Inability to finish the job with ball in hand from winning position upsets England.Â
Despite putting up a sub par show with bat in hand, England came back with the ball after the New Zealand openers gave the hosts a great start. England once after getting the breakthrough managed to take wickets at regular intervals and kept New Zealand under check. England kept themselves in the match as they out of nowhere reduced New Zealand to 196/8 in 38.3 overs a point in which the set batter Daryl Mitchell got out as New Zealand were down to the tail.
From thereon, the chief destroyers with the ball turned out to be heroes with the bat for New Zealand as the pair of Zak Foulkes and Blair Tickner put on an unbeaten 30-run stand off 37 balls and took New Zealand over the line from a losing position. New Zealand still needed 27 when the main batter Mitchell got out. But they found a way to reach the target in the end. England must be thinking what might have been for them as it was so near yet so far for England to get a win on the board.
One cannot fault the bowlers much for the defeat today, but saying so England if given another chance to win a game from a possible winning position should go for the kill and not let the game drift. They need to be more incisive in their bowling one feels. Jofra Archer went wicketless today also turned out to be a critical factor as New Zealand especially the openers Conway and Ravindra played him really well. The bowling wasn’t much of an issue one feels in this match and series.
Continuous underperformance of Joe Root exposes England.Â
Joe Root is an integral member of the ODI set-up if we look at the squad from batting point of view closely. He bats at Number 3 and has the ability to control the innings. England wants him to be the glue to hold one end up and let the other batters bat around him. But that could not be the case this time around as Joe Root had a match to forget and a series to forget as well and this meant England were exposed from both ends.
Joe Root managed to score 2 in this match and managed only 29 runs in 3 innings in this series. This is a series for Root to forget and he would like to do that quickly. If we look at the English side, there is no player other than Root who can hold the innings together and play an anchor type innings. Root is the only player who can do both according to the needs of the game. When Root plays well, the team does well and posts big totals because the others play around him. But in this series, he was coming to the crease early and going out early as well.
It meant the others were exposed against the new ball and were inept in playing it. Joe Root’s failure was one of the main reasons that in all three matches, England lost flurry of wickets in powerplay and couldn’t bat out full quota of 50 overs or not even come close to it. Joe Root would want to find his mojo and form back for himself and England soon if he or his side wants to do well. England won’t play ODIs for a while but they need to improve in this format.
England are ranked 8th in the ODI standings while New Zealand are ranked 2nd. This series showed why that is the case as the table do not lie as the English Lions continue to struggle in this format for the past 2-3 years. England will now switch formats and focus solely on Ashes 2025-26 starting on November 21st at Perth against Australia while New Zealand welcome West Indies for a full series starting with the 5-match T20I series starting on November 5th. Lots of cricketing actions ahead for both teams.
Also Read: NZ vs ENG: 3 Reasons For England’s Crushing Defeat In 1st ODI