Once he had posted his 50 last night New Zealand's Man of the Match in the five-wicket National Bank Series One-Day International win over England, Nathan Astle said he had only wanted to make sure he batted through.

He did that all right in scoring his best ODI score of 122 not out, his 12th century and with his final shot, a six into the street outside, he brought up 5000 ODI runs.

"It was a good one, it was just good to go right the way through.

"That's what I try and do every time I bat. The percentages say that if I manage to do that, or someone manages to do that, then we usually come out on top at the end. It would be one of the most satisfactory ones I have had.

"I wanted to be a little more positive, the first four games I wasn't really playing my game, I thought I probably got a couple of roughies and the confidence went a little bit and I would just go out and play my game. I always try and get 50 in the first 15 and then bat through the rest.

"I think we did it harder than we should've. We lost Macca (Craig McMillan) and then Cairnsey (Chris Cairns) straight away so and once Goughie (Darren Gough) gets his tail up he bowls very well, when Mac and I were out there we were looking at probably finishing in the 46th or 47th over. It went a couple of overs longer than we really wanted," he said.

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