Broad urges swift riposte

Stuart Broad praised the response of New Zealand staring down the barrel

Stuart Broad believes England only have themselves to blame for allowing New Zealand to fight their way back into the NatWest Series with victory in Bristol.

England entered the crucial third match on Saturday with a 1-0 lead in the five-match series and seemed favourites to take a stranglehold on it after dismissing the tourists for 182.

But after progressing to 62 for two, England collapsed to 160 all out and will now travel to London for the final two matches knowing they have a major battle against a Black Caps side rated as the third best one-day team in world cricket.

“We knew the game on Saturday was a very important day,” said Nottinghamshire seamer Broad, who claimed the most economical figures of his international career of 10-4-14-2.

“We said in the morning meeting that we had to be right on our guard because if we’d have gone 2-0 up they couldn’t win the series and it was a long way to come to go home empty handed.

“We knew it was a very important game and so did they and unfortunately we didn’t perform like we wanted and lost the game and have given them a sniff (of winning the series).

“After winning and bowling like they did, they are going to be up but it’s up to us to train hard on Tuesday and go to the Oval fresh and ready to put in another performance like at Durham and win the game.”

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Having dominated the opening match at Chester-le-Street and escaped without a defeat in Edgbaston because of the rain, England were hoping to lift themselves again for Bristol but instead wilted under the pressure of a tight run-chase.

Broad continued: “You’d expect to chase 180 on most international wickets, you’d have thought, but cricket has always been a pressure game.

“Because we got a few wickets, they couldn’t release the pressure by flicking us through midwicket or hitting us over the top so if we stuck to our plans they weren’t going to get away from us and the same happened with us.

“We lost a couple of wickets so we couldn’t take the risk of taking the game to them and they stuck to their plans well - we just didn’t cope with the pressure well enough, we didn’t bat well enough.

“When you’re in a run chase, you want to sort of kill their momentum. If you lose a wicket, kill their momentum and knock it about for a bit.

“But unfortunately it was about the 64-run period we had a little collapse but you got to pay credit to them. They fielded very well, they bowled very well and we didn’t bat well.”

England are hopeful left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom, who has missed the last two matches with a stiff back, will be fit enough for consideration at the Brit Oval.

Essex left-hander Alastair Cook, who is yet to feature in any of the one-day matches against New Zealand because of a sore shoulder, is also expected to have recovered to stake a claim for selection.