Stokes smokes England-record 182 to beat New Zealand by 181 runs

Stokes smokes England-record 182 to beat New Zealand by 181 runs

Malan scores 96 and adds 199 for the third wicket before Woakes and Livingstone complete the victory.

New Zealand 187 (Phillips 72, Livingstone 3-16, Woakes 3-31) was defeated by England 368 (Stokes 182, Malan 96, Boult 5-51, Lister 3-69) by 181 runs.

Ben Stokes dismissed any scepticism about his ability to play 50-over cricket after 14 months of ODI retirement at the KIA Oval. As he continued, he claimed the record for the highest score by an Englishman in the format with 182 off 124 to set up a resounding victory over New Zealand. He had already scored his fourth century in the format from 76 balls.

Stokes left the pitch in the third over with Trent Boult swinging the new ball and England struggling at 13 for 2, but he and Dawid Malan had a third-wicket partnership of 199 runs in 165 balls. When he faced Lockie Ferguson, he launched a vicious attack, scoring 56 runs off the 30 balls he faced; in total, Ferguson's nine overs yielded 80 runs.

Stokes got things going quickly, sprinting down the pitch and skipping outside the leg stump to create space for an off-side play. When Ferguson entered the attack, he had 13 off of 19, and he immediately tried to take him on, hitting three boundaries in four balls in Ferguson's second over, one with a thick leading edge.

After that, Stokes played at a pace reminiscent of the one he used during the Ashes earlier this summer: nudged and scuffed singles interspersed with deliberate, disdainful swipes into the stands. The best of the group was caught in the second tier of the Pavilion, a skip-down-and-swing off Glenn Phillips.

Stokes decided to stand and deliver the speech while he battled his knee issue. He hit nine sixes in all, including six in the last 31 balls. The sell-out crowd stood to cheer the hero of England's 2019 World Cup victory as he holed out to square leg while trying to hit a tenth, doubtless believing that he could still motivate them to a successful defence of their title in India.

Stokes added, "It's fantastic to come back in after a period off and contribute significantly to us winning the game. "Today was beneficial for me personally just to refresh my memory on how 50-over cricket works. We lost a couple wickets quickly, so I wanted to go out and exert some pressure on them. You have lot more time than you think. There were a couple of times I had to pinch myself because I looked up and there were still 23–24 overs left.

He claimed, "I actually didn't know [about the record] until the guy on the tannoy stated it and then I got out next ball. In 50-over cricket, we usually want to go out and put on big scores, but it was a matter of knowing how much more time I had. "There were a couple of stages where I was scoring quite freely and felt like I wanted to keep going and going and going," the batsman said.

Stokes was absent from the pitch for the first part of New Zealand's innings but maintains that his knee is "getting better and better". I merely needed a little bit of treatment, he declared. One-day games don't provide a rest, but test matches are lengthier. These first three games have been strong, despite the fact that it's different.

The notional pursuit of 369 by New Zealand quickly devolved into glorified middle practise. Phillips, who scored a career-high 72, was the only batter to reach 30 as New Zealand crumbled for 187. Chris Woakes bowled eight overs on the reel from the Pavilion conclude to conclude the game. He finished his opening spell with 3 for 31.