England won the toss and elected to field first and immediately had the ball swinging around and troubling the Kiwi batswomen. Suzie bates has been one their batter players, but she did not last long, gone for one, while captain Aimee Watkins scored 2 before becoming Katherine Brunt’s first of the three victims.
10/2 became 23/3 and 23/4 in the same over as Brunt continued to torment the New Zealanders with some impeccable lines and lengths to finish with figures of 4-2-6-3. There was a marginal recovery towards the end, but not one player passed the score of 19, and New Zealand was shot out for 85.
Chasing the meagre target, England made heavy weather of getting to it. Sarah and Claire Taylor were involved in a stabilising second wicket stand of 20 runs, and while Sarah got out, Claire battled on to an unbeaten 39.
At 74/4 in the 16th over, there were a few nervous English women in the dugout, but Jenny Gunn did not allow any further collapses and saw the team through.
Brunt won the player of the match for her excellent spell of bowling, while Claire Taylor’s consistent run with the bat won her the player of the series.