England captain Eoin Morgan has heaped praise on his side after they beat New Zealand by seven wickets, with six overs to spare, to level the Royal London One-Day Series at 2-2 with one game to go.

Centuries from man-of-the-match Morgan, the eighth of his career in the format, and Joe Root guided England to their highest ever ODI run chase after the Black Caps had posted 349-7.

But Morgan pinpointed other key aspects of his side’s performance that were vital in securing the win that kept the series alive.

“Full credit to the boys today as it was an outstanding performance started off by Alex Hales and Jason Roy at the top,” he said.

“They set the tone very early coming out and playing unbelievable cricket and Hales deserves a special mention for the knock he put in on his home ground.

“The carefree attitude is helping my batting, concentrating on the process rather than the result and I’ve really enjoyed going up to number four.

“I think the rain helped massively today as the ball was holding up in the New Zealand innings and we thought they might have been 25 over par.

“I still think our style of play rather than the result is more important at Durham but everything is very encouraging at the moment.”

New Zealand looked on track for a third successive mammoth total when Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor once again shared in a century stand.

However, Morgan believed tight bowling from the duo of Mark Wood and Steven Finn - whose combined 20 overs cost just 100 runs - were key to limiting New Zealand to below 350.

“Our bowling performance was reasonable today although we sort of struggled to take wickets in the middle even after changing it up,” he said.

“If you can’t budge New Zealand’s experienced batsmen in the middle order, you can be in for a long day and staring at a big score.

“However, Finn and Wood bowled outstandingly well in the powerplay and after it and they were match winning spells in themselves.

“Finn is bowling brilliantly at the moment; Wood is absolutely loving being a part of it all and goes out to bowl with as much pace as possible, which works in our favour.”

 

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