England open with a defeat

England paid the price for failing to heed the mistakes made during their build-up to the World Cup and suffered a costly six…

England paid the price for failing to heed the mistakes made during their build-up to the World Cup and suffered a costly six-wicket defeat to New Zealand in their opening match.

A paltry 209 for seven having been put into bat in the heavyweight Group C encounter was not enough to test the Kiwis, who coasted home with nine overs to spare.

Captain Michael Vaughan had stressed the need to analyse and absorb the lessons learned from their warm-up defeat to Australia in St Vincent a week earlier when England let a promising position slip and suffered a comprehensive defeat.

But despite working all week to eradicate the mistakes made against Australia, England's demise was almost a carbon copy.

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England recovered from a shaky start to reach 133 for three with 15 overs remaining following an 81-run stand between Kevin Pietersen (60) and Paul Collingwood (31).

But despite a hard-hitting stand of 71 from the final 11 overs between Paul Nixon (42 not out) and Liam Plunkett (29 not out), the loss of four wickets for five runs in the middle order restricted England to a modest total.

With the Beausejour Stadium averaging around 240 per innings, England's total was always going to be under-par, and so it proved with New Zealand recovering from the loss of three wickets inside the first five overs to claim a convincing triumph.