Much of England's relative success in one-day cricket this winter has been down to the deck-pounding, corridor-probing thriftiness of Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard, but at Dunedin today, Nathan Astle took them apart in a calculated assault that was the key to New Zealand's victory. In the first 15 overs, with NZ chasing a fairly modest target, Astle laced Hoggard and Flintoff for 36 runs off only 22 balls (the equivalent of 9.81 runs per over), and did so by hardly leaving his crease: he ran two singles, but whacked four fours and three sixes.

Astle took a gamble, because he was only in control of 59% of his shots (13 out of 22) off Hoggard and Flintoff, as against 65% (13 out of 20) against Darren Gough and Craig White, whom he treated with a lot more respect: 14 runs off 20 balls (4.2 per over), three fours, no sixes.

But it was brave stuff, because Hoggard and Flintoff did not do a lot wrong. As our graph shows, 18 of those 22 deliveries pitched outside off stump, and nothing veered the wrong side of middle. Astle, however, walloped 30 runs off those 18 deliveries - exactly ten an over - and 18 off 11 balls that landed on a good length. Astle was always going to get England at some point: only twice in his career has he played a full five-match series at home and failed to score a century. Sadly for them, it came at a crucial time.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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