New Zealand vs England, 1st ODI at Hamilton, Feb 17 2013 - Ball by Ball Commentary

We'll leave you with this from Alex: "Just as well McCullum brought that home after running Williamson out. Good innings from both of them, and AWESOME from Guptill. Nice to see a close game for a change!"

Hope you enjoyed our coverage of what you could describe as an old-fashioned ODI tonight, thanks for all the feedback and hoping that you will join us on Wednesday for the 2nd ODI at McLean Park in Napier, this is Avi Singh signing off on behalf of Andrew 'Gnasher' McGlashan, whose match report will be up shortly. Cheerio!

Time for the post-match interviews. Here's England captain Alistair Cook: "We got off to an okay start, 260 was an okay score. I thought we did quite well, the way we bowled and defended the total. Credit to where New Zealand bowled, we lost 8 wickets in the last 15-16 overs. We didn't capitalise in the Powerplay and credit to Brendon who took the game away from us. I thought all [of the full-time bowlers] bowled pretty well, we didn't take all our catches though. We were surprised by the slow nature of the wicket."

Brendon McCullum:"We enjoy playing here, today was really important. Nice to show those fighting characteristics to restrict them to 260 [after they were 158 for 2]. Kyle Mills has been an outstanding bowler for a number of years and his record shows that, he led the attack well. We hope Mitch [McClenaghan] will be fit soon. James is experienced and offers us a lot with the ball so good to see him stepping up. Kane played well until I ran him out! I apologised to him but I thought his intent was outstanding and he controlled the game nicely. [Guptill] was disappointed to pull up with the injury but it was pleasing for him to come back and hit the winning runs."

Five years and eight days ago, these two sides had kicked off their last bilateral ODI series in New Zealand with the same result as tonight - a successful New Zealand chase, but that's where the similarities end.

Last time England were bowled out for 130, today they made almost double that (although it could have been more had they not been bowled out with three balls left unused). Similarly, New Zealand cruised to victory last time, but did it the hard way this time and appeared to have batted themselves out of the game by losing key wickets at regular intervals. Their skipper Brendon McCullum made amends for running out Kane Williamson, who had made a composed 74, and Martin Guptill triumphantly returned to the wicket, after retiring hurt early on due to a hamstring injury, to hit his side to victory.

England will rue not kicking on from the start provided to them by fifties from the returning Warwickshire pair of Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott, as well as whiz-kid Joe Root, but they were stifled by another aggressive effort with the ball from Mitchell McClenaghan, who nabbed four wickets before limping off with a side strain, and was well supported by Kyle Mills, who was miserly in claiming 2-32 from his 10, and James Franklin who snared 3-38.

Mark: "The last few correspondents are missing the point. In both cases Root and McCullum were given out. There was no clear evidence in either case so either both original out decisions should have been upheld or they should both have been reversed. The inconsistency between the 2 decisions is the issue."

James: "@Bishop: The evidence for Root WAS conclusive. The front-on angle showed daylight between ball and glove. It couldnt get any more conclusive than that."

Rajesh: "DRS certainly has brought interaction from the readers. Once upon a time there was nothing to get people into a debate. Now all it takes is one decision and everyone's on the ball. DRS - take a bow!"

English brains trust converge to discuss tactics

John: "@Chris, absolutely not! There's no way that anyone can say conclusively that the ball did not hit the pad first from those replays. That means that there's no conclusive evidence that the on-field umpire was wrong and therefore the original decision stands. It is NOT for the third umpire to give the benefit of the doubt to the batsmen. He gives the benefit of the doubt to the on-field umpire."

Richard: "Can't have a go at DRS here - all the technology said the decision was marginal. If the umpire hadn't given it it wouldn't have been out! I've seen a lot of non-DRS matches and big difference is that the bad decisions are generally a long way away from marginal. Surely we can't still be arguing that DRS hasn't improved the game!"

Bishop: "re DRS if it was correct to uphold the Nathan McCullum decision, then the Root decision should have also been upheld. Seems evidence was inconclusive in both cases."