New Zealand v England: third men’s cricket one-day international – live

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Aha! A message drops from the Guardian’s Simon Burnton, fresh from a date scone.

“Morning/afternoon/whatever Tanya. So, we’ve reached the end. The end of the tour - or at least this leg of it - and of England’s white-ball 2025. It’s been a rather ignominious end, for all that Harry Brook’s side “won” the “T20 series” that preceded these three ODIs.

“And the curtain comes down in Wellington’s Sky Stadium, which is expected to be less than a quarter full for the game. England trained yesterday at the Basin Reserve, the lovely bespoke cricket ground across town and perhaps the world’s finest roundabout, but for contractual reasons the match itself has to be played in a giant, echoing, sparsely-populated bowl and this is a bad thing.

“Beyond that, I have learned that Wellingtonians are extremely committed to celebrating Halloween in fully costumed and completely intoxicated style, and that date scones are the finest of all scones, with only cheese even close, and I will never understand why Britons insist on putting raisins in theirs.”

It’s a drop-in pitch and Conway reckons it might do a bit early after the weather they’ve had the last few weeks. Just going to grab a quick cup of tea, back in five.

Though this is a dead game, it could still give England valuable points as they scramble to automatically qualify for the 2027 World Cup. Simon has the details:

New Zealand XI

New Zealand XI: Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, Will Young, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (wk), Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (capt), Nathan Smith, Zak Foulkes, Blair Tickner, Jacob Duffy.

Conway for Williamson at the top of the order.

England XI

Unchanged.

England XI: Jamie Smith, Ben Duckertt, Joe Root, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook (capt), Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Curran, Jamie Overton, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid

New Zealand win the toss and will bowl

There’s a very cute little boy who hands the coin over to Mitchell Santner, who duly wins the toss. “It looks like a good wicket” Santner says, “a bit of grass on it.” One change – Devon Conway replaces Kane Williamson who has a twinge in the groin.

Brook says he’d like to win a toss at some point. “We’ll go out today, play with freedom, try and have fun. We haven’t quite got the runs but we’ll try and have some presence with our batting.”

Preamble

Good early morning! As damp skeletons skulk back home, time for England to dust themselves down for this third and final ODI in Wellington.

It is a dead game, the series already New Zealand’s. But Harry Brook will want to see lesser-spotted, runs, and lots of them. Play starts at 1am, do join us to see if England can raise their one-day game from the dead.