New Zealand vs England
The fourth Stick Cricket Cup ODI was held at the Oval between New Zealand and the hosts England. This is New Zealand's first match of the tournament whereas England have already played and convincingly won a match against Zimbabwe. This is the real test for England though, playing on a green pitch against one of the top bowlers in the world, Shane Bond, and without their best player from the last match. Paul Collingwood was reportedly injured during practice prior to Pakistan's win against Bangladesh and there are serious doubts of him participating in the rest of the tournament.
New Zealand won the toss, and much to England's dismay, decided to field first. As expected on such a pitch, England started off slow against Bond and Martin's quick bowling scoring at the rate of just 3.7 per over. But the real trouble started for England after the 10 over mark when everything seemed to go wrong for their batsmen. In a destructive over, Bond was able to rid of both openers, namely Trescothick and Strauss, followed by a string of great deliveries by Martin that sent Vaughan, Pietersen, and Flintoff packing, reducing England to 54/5.
Bell, who was somehow able to survive this assault from the kiwis, went on to form a slow but solid partnership with the keeper Geriant Jones. Though this may have saved England the humiliation of being bowled out for an extremely low score at home turf, the partnership still wasn't enough to take them past 200, a task even the minnow teams completed.
At the end of the inning, England had scored 178 for the loss of 8 wickets.