Stokes smokes England-record 182 to beat New Zealand by 181 runs

Malan makes 96 while adding 199 for third wicket, before Woakes, Livingstone seal rout

England 368 (Stokes 182, Malan 96, Boult 5-51, Lister 3-69) beat New Zealand 187 (Phillips 72, Livingstone 3-16, Woakes 3-31) by 181 runs If there were any doubts about his readiness to play 50-over cricket after 14 months in ODI retirement, Ben Stokes laughed them off at the KIa Oval. He belted his fourth century in the format off 76 balls, then pushed on to claim the highest score in the format by an Englishman with 182 off 124 to set up a crushing victory over New Zealand. https://www.highcpmrevenuegate.com/jd0ebfny4?key=992198874bb245918c4c8a7d7e70d404

Stokes walked out in the third over with Trent Boult swinging the new ball and England in trouble at 13 for 2, but shared a third-wicket stand worth 199 in 165 balls with Dawid Malan. He launched a brutal assault on Lockie Ferguson, looting 56 runs off the 30 balls he faced from him; all told, Ferguson's nine overs cost 80.

Stokes started frantically, charging down the pitch and skipping outside leg stump to give himself room to play over the off side. He had 13 off 19 when Ferguson came into the attack and immediately looked to take him on, hitting three boundaries in four balls - one via a thick leading edge - in Ferguson's second over.

That was enough to get Stokes going, and thereafter he played at a similar tempo to the one he adopted during the Ashes earlier this summer: prodded and scuffed singles interspersed with calculated, dismissive swipes into the stands. The pick of the bunch, a skip-down-and-swing off Glenn Phillips, was caught in the second tier of the Pavilion.

As he battled his knee injury, Stokes opted to stand and deliver. He crunched nine sixes, including six in his final 31 balls. When he holed out to square leg, attempting to hit a tenth, the sell-out crowd stood to applaud the hero of England's 2019 World Cup triumph, no doubt imbued with the belief that he could yet inspire them to a successful defence of their title in India.

"It's good to come back in after a while out and put a big contribution into us winning the game," Stokes said. "Today was good for me personally, just to get familiarity again with how 50-over cricket goes. We lost a few quick wickets and I wanted to go out and put them under a bit of pressure. There were a couple of times I had to check myself because I looked up and there were still 23-24 overs left... you have way more time than you think.

"I didn't really know [about the record] until the bloke on the tannoy announced it - then I got out next ball," he said. "There were a couple of stages where I was scoring quite freely and felt like I wanted to keep going and going and going... in 50-over cricket, we always want to go out and put on big scores but [it was a case of] realising how much more time I had."

New Zealand's nominal attempt to chase 369 quickly turned into glorified middle practice. Chris Woakes bowled eight overs on the reel from the Pavilion End, finishing his opening spell with 3 for 31 and ending the game as a contest; Phillips, who made a career-best 72, was the only batter to reach 30 as New Zealand folded for 187.

While Stokes took centre stage, this might have been the day that England's World Cup squad worked itself out. With Jason Roy ruled out for a third consecutive ODI after suffering his second back spasm in six days, Malan returned from paternity leave and took his chance. His 96 off 95 balls was his second half-century of the series and his ninth 50-plus score out of 20 in ODIs.

Malan appeared to be the spare batter when England named their provisional 15-man squad a month ago. After being dropped by Trent Rockets in the Hundred and a scratchy T20I series, Malan's spot looked vulnerable - not least with Harry Brook, who missed the initial cut, pitching an irresistible case.