New Zealand coach Mark Greatbatch thought his team were "dead and buried" before they staged a stubborn fightback to beat England by three runs in an ICC under-19 World Cup match in Christ church yesterday.
Despite a whirl wind half-century from opening bats man Jesse Ryder, and middle-order resistance led by Brook Hatwell, the young New Zealanders had fallen short of Greatbatch's expectations by reaching only 205.
"We probably didn't get enough runs, and when they had 90 balls left and 70-odd to get, with four down, we were pretty much dead and buried.
"But our boys showed a lot of character," a relieved Greatbatch said.
New Zea land joined Australia, who beat South Africa by five wickets, also in Christchurch, at the top of Super League section two.
There are sterner assign ments ahead, against South Africa today and Australia on Friday, if New Zealand are to reach the semifinals.
England were placed well during a 61-run seventh- wicket partnership between Mark Pettini and wicketkeeper Stephen Pope which should have carried their side through to victory.
But neither batsman was able to capital ise on the situation as New Zealand captain Ross Taylor rotated four bowlers, Iain Robertson, part-timer Ryder, Richard Sherlock and Peter Borren, during an increasingly tense last 10 overs.
Pettini was dismissed by Sherlock with the score at 196, leaving Pope and Tim Bresnan the task of scoring 10 runs from the last eight deliveries.
The equation then came down to four runs from the last two balls of Borren's final over.
The 18-year-old Canterbury medium- pacer promptly bowled Pope and then beat the flailing bat of Chris Gil bert to complete an unlikely win.
"What I liked about it was our guys fought to the last ball," Greatbatch said.
"These games in the Super League may be round- robin but they really are sudden- death matches.
"You need to win to keep progressing. If you lose you get put under a lot of pressure," he said.
