NZ Women in England 2026 – England eager to put nervy season start behind them


England hope to have erased some nerves ahead of their second ODI against New Zealand in Northampton on Wednesday.
The home side’s thrilling one-wicket win in Durham with 10 balls remaining on Sunday was a strange combination of keeping their cool and displaying the hallmarks of a team which hadn’t played internationally for more than six months. Using three debutants and a number of unfamiliar combinations due to injury, illness and workload management among some more senior players, the performance lacked polish.
England’s fielding was poor, yet they managed to bundle New Zealand out for a sub-par 210 inside 49 overs. Only two batters passed 30 in Maia Bouchier, a late inclusion for injured captain Nat Sciver-Brunt who scored 59, and Charlie Dean, the stand-in skipper whose unbeaten 31 batting with the tail steered them home.
Experienced seamer Lauren Bell and Tilly Corteen-Coleman, the 18-year-old left-arm spinner making her international debut, claimed two wickets each and both played a hand in helping Dean, who also took two, to the target.

Bell said on the eve of the second game that fielding was “definitely a sector where we’ve worked really hard” and put the untidiness down to early season jitters.

“It was the first international game of the summer and there was probably a lot of nerves,” Bells said. “There were three debuts and then there were girls that haven’t played for England for a while. All in all, it was probably quite a nervous fielding performance and I’d like to hope that tomorrow we’ll be back and we’ll show how far our fielding’s come.

“For the first game of the summer we were in a really good place. The bowling attack were really clear on their plans. As a batting unit, we’ll look to be a bit more steady.”

Bell, the leader of England’s seam attack with 73 caps across formats, shared a 35-run stand with Dean for the eighth wicket which took England to within 16 runs of victory. Corteen-Coleman and Dean did the rest after Lauren Filer fell for an eight-ball duck.

“I was relatively calm,” Bell said. “We knew what the challenge ahead of us was and the run rate was never going to be the problem so it was a pretty easy task to just bat the overs. But I’ve never been in a situation before, especially for England, where I can help the team get over the line with the bat. I was actually quite excited for the opportunity.

“I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the opportunity. I would much prefer to see it done a bit easier but I just want to help this side get over the line and if that’s with the bat, then so be it. I’ve been working really hard so if the time comes again, I feel confident to do a job.

“Winning games of cricket like that is really important, especially leading into tournament cricket,” she added. “In the past, maybe we wouldn’t have got over the line and we would have struggled. It shows a real change of character and a real push forward in this team that we’ve got the characters to really get us over the line, especially in situations like that.”

Maddy Green, whose 88 and part in a century stand with captain Melie Kerr, said the White Ferns had also taken lessons away from the match.

“We probably left a few out there with the bat, but if we look at our bowling performance, our bowlers did an excellent job to keep us in the game for the whole match there,” Green said. “For the most part we did a lot of things really well and there’s just probably a few things to tidy up with the bat.

“For some of our players, it’s the first time playing outside of New Zealand in different conditions so for those players, it’s just trying to adapt and learn really quickly and what they might do better next time. For me personally, I probably reflect and go, maybe I could have batted a few more overs to try to take it a little bit deeper and get a partnership going with one of the lower order. Hopefully we can take some of the things we didn’t do so well in that last game and turn it around tomorrow.”



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