In the first of five instalments running throughout the New Zealand-England series, we delve into the Wisden Almanack archive to pick out a memorable one-day match between the sides. Here we retrace our steps to the last one-day-series in New Zealand, in 1996-97. On this occasion England led 2-0 with two to play, and looked to have the series in the bag. 3rd ODI, 1996-97 - Napier
Match Tied

England entered this five-match one-day series on something approaching a high, after a winter that had veered from one extreme to another. They had failed to win a single international during the first leg of their campaign - an infamously sulky tour of Zimbabwe – and when New Zealand's last-pair Danny Morrison and Nathan Astle resisted England for the entire afternoon of the fifth day at Auckland it seemed nothing would go right.

Things improved in the second Test at Wellington, where Gough and Caddick took 15 wickets between them in their first outing as a strike partnership, and Mike Atherton sealed the series at Christchurch with a superbly bloody-minded performance. A valedictory 4 for 22 from Phil Tufnell secured the first one-dayer, and Nick Knight rushed England into a 2-0 lead at Auckland. But there was still time for some of the gloss to be removed.

Almanack report
Scorecard

Andrew Miller is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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