In their first limited-overs encounter after the ICC World Cup 2019 final, England defeated New Zealand in the first Twenty-20 International (T20I) of the five-match series by seven wickets with an all-round performance at the Hagley Oval on Friday.

Riding on a brilliant half-century from James Vince (59 off 38 balls), England chased the target of 154 with nine balls to spare. Jonny Bairstow with his 35 in 28 balls and England captain Eoin Morgan’s unbeaten 34 off 21 deliveries also helped the visitors in their cause.

A perfect start to the series!! 🦁

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Scorecard: https://t.co/Zms56XSuuw#NZvENG pic.twitter.com/n69DgOqyLT

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) November 1, 2019

On being asked to bat first, the home team found themselves under check from the very first ball. The English bowlers kept taking wickets at crucial intervals and restricted the Kiwi batsmen to score freely. Ross Taylor (44 off 35) and Daryl Mitchell, though, (30 off 17) tried to take their team to a commendable score.

Chris Jordan was the pick of the bowlers for the English side as he picked up crucial wickets of Colin Munro (21 off 20) and Tim Seifert (32 off 26) and returned with the figure of 2/25 from his quota of four overs. The other bowlers Sam Curran (1/33), Tom Curran (0/25), Adil Rashid (1/31) and Patrick Brown (1/33) also put in able contributions.

David Malan and Bairstow started the chase for the visitors with a cautious approach and played the ball on its merits. With Malan getting dismissed at 11, Vince joined Bairstow and accelerated the scoring rate of his tea.

He scored seven boundaries and two maximums during his stay.  In the end, Morgan shared an unbeaten stand of 32 runs with Sam Billings (14) to see his team through to comfortable victory.

Mitchell Santner was the lone warriors for his team in the second innings as he took all the three English wickets in his brilliant economical spell which fetched him the figure of 4/23. The left-arm spinner did not get any support from the other end as all the other bowlers conceded runs at a rate of over 7.

Vince, in the end, was adjudged the Man of the Match. Both the teams will now lock horns in the second match at the Westpac Stadium, Wellington on Sunday.

(With inputs from IANS)