A superb comeback effort by England helped them edge past New Zealand in their last ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 Super Eight clash in Colombo on Friday. Though already through to the semifinal, England once again came up with a resilient performance to beat New Zealand by four wickets.
Defending a modest total of 160, New Zealand made a roaring start as Matt Henry got a wicket in his first over yet again. He had Phil Salt nick to the wicketkeeper. Jos Buttler’s tough campaign continued as he fell to Lockie Ferguson in the same fashion, and England were 2 for 2 after just eight balls into the innings.
However, Harry Brook, who became the first captain to hit a century in T20 World Cups in the previous game, calmed some of the early nerves with back-to-back boundaries against Henry. The second was an extravagant scoop for six. England recovered to 47 for 2 in powerplay.
Glenn Phillips played a part in dismissing both Brook and Jacob Bethell, who had built a 48-run stand for the third wicket. While he had the English captain holing out at long-off, Phillips pulled off a stunning diving catch to send back Bethell.
New Zealand looked set for victory but couldn’t finish it off
New Zealand looked in the drivers’ seat with England down to 100 for 5 but they could not finish the job.
England’s batting depth came to the fore yet again as Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks and Rehan Ahmed all came up with valuable contributions to take their team to the finish line. Having absorbed pressure through the innings, Jacks turned the tide in the 18th over, as he took 22 runs off Phillips, New Zealand’s main man up until that point.
Asked to bowl first, England spinners had a field day as they restricted New Zealand to 159 for 7. All New Zealand batters fell to spinners as England deployed 16 overs by spin, their most ever in T20I cricket.
Seasoned campaigner Adil Rashid, who had provided England the breakthrough, finished with 2 for 28 while Will Jacks continued his great run in the tournament with 2 for 24.
It was a dream World Cup debut for leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, who bagged the wicket of Rachin Ravindra on his very first delivery. In his three overs, he claimed two wickets and conceded 28 runs. Left-arm spinner Liam Dawson joined in the fun with the wicket of Daryl Mitchell.
After a watchful start, Black Caps openers Finn Allen (29) and Tim Seifert (35) stepped on the gas in the fourth over. Jofra Archer had started the innings with a maiden but was taken for 16 runs in his fourth over, as New Zealand raced to 54 for no loss in the powerplay.
Phillips holds New Zealand innings together
It set the tone for the Black Caps innings, who maintained a good scoring rate even when they lost wickets in clusters. Glenn Phillips was back among the runs as he scored 39 off 28 — the highest score for his team on the day. He held the innings together in the middle overs with handy partnerships with Ravindra and Mark Chapman.
“Good match, tight match. Think the way they paced the chase, Jacks and Rehan, the finishing touches, was a good bit of batting. Would have made our lives easier if we won. We played a pretty good game. Areas you can look back on with bat and ball, but credit to England. We set up a good platform, to scrape to 160-could have been 170. Then with 40-odd from the last three, to take down the offie was good batting. Tonight, we set a platform, got to the second time out in a good spot then maybe took some tough options. We were thinking that 170-175 would have been a good score. Rehan showed his class with the bat, a good player of spin and he wasn’t fazed. Set up by Bants and Curran after losing a few at the start,” said New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner.
Brief scores: New Zealand 159 for seven in 20 overs (Tim Seifert 35, Finn Allen 29, Glenn Phillips 39; Adil Rashid 2/28, will Jacks 2/23, Rehan Ahmed 2/28) lost to England 161 for six in 19.3 overs (Harry Brook 26, Jacob Bethell 21, Tom Banton 33, Sam Curran 24, Will Jacks 32 not out, Rehan Ahmed 19 not out; Rachin Ravindra 3/19).
