Guptill savours 'special' innings

Martin Guptill was savouring the "special" feeling of becoming New Zealand's highest scorer in a one-day international after scorching his way to an unbeaten 189 at the Ageas Bowl - his second hundred in three days - and is looking forward to getting in touch with the man whose record he broke.

Guptill often played alongside Lou Vincent, who scored 172 against Zimbabwe in 2005, and is planning on contacting his former team-mate to talk him through how his landmark was taken.

"It's a pretty special feeling," Guptill said. "I played a lot of cricket with Lou so I'll have to give him a bit of stick later on tonight. It's not been the worst few days. I'm pretty happy with the way I'm batting and long may it continue."

His back-to-back hundreds mark a triumphant return to the one-day side following the hamstring injury which curtailed his series against England in New Zealand, although he still managed to produce a matchwinning performance in Hamilton to steer his team to victory. "I'd had a bit of a lean patch before I got injured so to be able to come back and score back-to-back hundreds is pretty special," he said.

"I think it was the batsmanship through the middle stages I found the most impressive," he said. "Martin's batsmanship the other day at Lord's was great but I think today it went up a notch. We all know about his striking ability so when you put the two aspects together it's probably as a good an innings as you'll see for New Zealand."

Alastair Cook was also gracious in his assessment of the display that condemned his team to their first home one-day series loss under his captaincy. "It was a very special innings. He made us pay," Cook said. "What was impressive is that he always managed to find the right option at the right time so if we did build a couple of dots he'd always get the release with a four without taking too big a risk."

Despite wrapping up the series with a game to spare, McCullum was not giving any thoughts to using the final match, at Trent Bridge on Wednesday, as a glorified net session ahead of the Champions Trophy. New Zealand were 2-0 up in South Africa earlier this before seeing the home side steal a one-wicket in the final game and does not want a repeat. "Three-nil would be as good as it gets," he said. "So we'll be doing whatever we can to continue the momentum we have."