New Zealand completed its comeback from 2-0 down to tie the Twenty20 series against England by winning the fourth and final match by six wickets on Tuesday. Set a victory target of 176 at Trent Bridge, the New Zealanders had a 32-ball 48 from opener Tim Seifert before Glenn Phillips accelerated the middle part of the chase with 42 off 25 balls.


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Mark Chapman (40 not out off 25) saw the tourists over the line with 16 balls left to cap a sharp turnaround in the series that England started so well with heavy wins in Durham and Manchester.


WATCH Jonny Bairstow fifty in the fourth T20I against New Zealand HERE…



New Zealand hammered England by 74 runs in Birmingham on Sunday to stay alive in the series and dominated the fourth match after dismissing Jonny Bairstow (73 off 41 runs, including six sixes), who gave England a fast start. From 105-1 early in the 11th over, England lost momentum following the removal of Bairstow and sputtered to 175-8, which always felt too little on a ground known for producing big totals.


The teams now meet in a four-match one-day international series, starting Friday, that serves as a warmup for the upcoming Cricket World Cup in India starting in October.


“I thought we just lost momentum. It was very disappointing because then we couldn’t really catch up. We got a reasonable score but not good enough. We just couldn’t get it right with the ball,” England stand-in captain Moeen Ali said.


In a concern for England, Bairstow didn’t keep wicket in New Zealand’s chase because of injury. Jos Buttler, who wasn’t in the starting lineup to give himself a rest, took the gloves.


“Yeah I’ll be fine. It’s just one of those things, it’s precautionary. With everything we’ve got coming up, there was no point taking chances with it,” Bairstow said after the match.


“It’s been a bit of a while since I've played white ball cricket so it was just about getting rhythm with it. I was probably run a ball for a couple of the knocks and accelerated on from there,” he added.


(with PTI inputs)