Date-stamped : 21 Feb97 - 14:17 Pre-match Electronic Telegraph England aim to end tour on high note THE Lancaster Park groundsman Russell Wylie has already been mentioned in despatches, but he must be recognised again for a world record. Over the eight-day period which ends today he will have staged three successive international matches on his tiny square, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins. It was the turn of the women yesterday, when Australia defeated New Zealand in the third and deciding game in their series of one-day internationals. Early this morning, British time, the new floodlights were due to be used for the first time as New Zealand and England donned their coloured kit to start the series of five games which, depending on your view, provide either light relief from the tensions of the Test series or the icing on the cake. England had not decided last night, after practising under the lights, whether to rest Mike Atherton for the first match after he spent all but the last afternoon of the Test on the field. For his own good and the team's he should certainly have been prepared to miss at least this match. Graham Thorpe, who was unwisely left out of the one-day games in Zimbabwe, was a certainty to play, partly in order to do some bowling on the Test pitch, which is being re-used and can only be slow. Atherton said stoutly after the Test series had been sewn up that England must play much better in the one-day series than they did in Zimbabwe if the winter is to end on a high note. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Report From The Press Honours fall to England under lights Tufnell crushes NZ hopes It was England's night at the first cricket match under lights at Lancaster Park yesterday. England scored 226 for six in the 49th over in reply to New Zealand's total of 222 for six. The mood of the 25,000 crowd fluctuated with the fortunes of the home team. The crowd was in a party mood for the New Zealand innings, with fans in both camps chanting, singing, and urging on their heroes. The atmosphere intensified when the towering new lights went on at the innings break, a historic first for the park. Police arrested 10 people for a variety of offences, including streaking, assault, and urinating in public. More than 30 people were evicted for disorder offences. Inspector Bob Mather said police were concerned about the drunken state of many patrons on the embankment at the innings break. In consultation with the Victory Park Board and caterers the alcohol booths were shut down at 6.45pm. The ground was packed and some people arriving were unable to get on the embankment at 2pm. They left before the game started and many said they would be asking for a refund on their $20 tickets. Others were moved into the southern grandstand, where 900 seats had been left free in case of overcrowding problems. Embankment spectators ignored the organisers' request not to bring chilly bins and deck chairs, with the cheekiest arriving with car seats and sofas. New Zealand Cricket's marketing director, Neil Maxwell, acknowledged the space problem on the embankment. "It's the first time we have had a crowd of 25,000 at a cricket match since 1983. The embankment normally holds 9000 and on police advice we sold for a crowd of 8000. Fortunately we kept the 900 stand seats unsold," he said. Source :: The Canterbury Press (http://www.press.co.nz/) Report - Electronic TelegraphFriday 21 February 1997 England triumph as Tufnell turns in one-day best WHAT a difference a Test victory or two will make to the confidence of a touring team. England overtook New Zealand's 222 to win the first of the five one-day internationals - the first staged under floodlights at Lancaster Park - by four wickets with seven balls to spare on the back of a fine piece of bowling by Phil Tufnell, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins. Not yet prepared to turn over a completely new leaf, they had a familiar little collapse before finishing the job, but this was a happy start to the last phase of the tour. As a team England rose to an atmosphere of licensed madness, before a crowd apparently far more interested in Mexican waves than cricket, unconcerned that the electronic scoreboard was invisible half the night and seldom had the information you wanted when it could be seen. With helicopters taking off from the cark park every few minutes and the loudspeakers pulsating with all kinds of extraneous noises, it was far from peaceful but Mike Atherton, concerned only by the wobble at the end of the run chase, described it as "a fun day for spectators and a great atmosphere to play in". Alec Stewart, the indefatigable, and Graham Thorpe, restored to his rightful place in the limited-overs side, made the bulk of the runs in a second-wicket stand of 171 in 36 overs, but England could not resist one of their famous collapses. Having needed only 28 from the last 10 overs with eight wickets in hand, they gave their opponents more than a glimpse of salvation before Robert Croft drove his first two over-pitched balls from Heath Davis for four. It was Tufnell who ensured that the target was attainable, taking four for 22 in 10 excellent overs, a personal triumph all the more pleasing in view of his unwanted publicity earlier this week. "See you in Bardelli's" was his departing comment to the press conference after the match but he cannot have felt like joking earlier in the week about the front-page stories which resulted from his eviction from that hitherto unknown wine bar on Monday night. Atherton had told Tufnell to "be strong" before calling on him to bowl the 20th over of New Zealand's innings at 87 for one. At the end of his spell he was quite strong enough to wave his cap in angry defiance of a section of the 25,000 crowd who had heckled him. It was probably the wrath of an innocent man this time, and certainly of a reformed character who has worked hard to become more professional. Tufnell's performance, in what was only his 20th international and his first for more than two years, was on paper his best in a one-day game for England, overtaking an analysis of three for 40 against Australia in Sydney in 1991. He was only picked in this game at the last minute, though it was elementary, one would have thought, to play almost as many slow bowlers as possible on a pitch being used for the seventh day running. New Zealand, repeating their Test match mistake, had only one spinner, having decided not to pick Daniel Vettori, even on a pitch with great patches of grey rough at both ends. It was the wrong decision for the match, the right one for Vettori's future. They would have been wiser to have picked a more expendable left-arm spinner, like Matthew Hart. Dipak Patel took the new ball, just as he had when his adopted country reached the World Cup semi-finals five years ago. He was less effective on this occasion and when he came back for a second spell both Stewart and Thorpe lifted him over the leg-side boundary for six. Patel had to operate with a white ball which had become damp from showers blown on a strong sea breeze. By then, too, Stewart and Thorpe were in full sail, shutting out the cacophany and milking ordinary bowling with the kind of cool professional skill which was missing from England's performances against Zimbabwe. Only when Thorpe played on to Davis after hitting eight fours and a six, did they briefly revert to type. Stewart lifted Davis to deep square leg in the next over, the 43rd, and John Crawley hit across the line of an inswinger in the 44th. Nasser Hussain kept cool, as Stewart and Thorpe had done in the period after Atherton and Nick Knight had also been out in successive overs, and, despite Gavin Larsen's good length and unwavering accuracy and a third wicket for Davis when Dominic Cork hit a full toss to midwicket, the job was quickly done by Croft. Unlike Croft, Tufnell had the good fortune to come on after the mayhem of the first 15 overs had ceased. New Zealand, having won the toss, made 76 for one while nine men were confined within the 30-yard circle, Nathan Astle scoring most of them with crisply-timed strokes through the off side. With his great stroke-playing ability (he has scored three one-day hundreds and three more in Tests already) and his useful bowling, Astle would make a handy, relatively cheap addition to a county's staff. England, like New Zealand later, fielded well after Thorpe had shown the way with a flamboyant slip catch to dismiss Bryan Young in the sixth over off Alan Mullally, whose selection ahead of Andrew Caddick was the only change made to the Test side. They also bowled straight and looked nothing like the disorganised, uninspired outfit who lost their previous 12 overseas inter- nationals against Test opponents. Chris Harris, like Larsen an indispensable member of a Kiwi side who collectively have logged 277 more internationals than England's XI, made 48 not out off 51 balls, but England never looked like a side who had lost control. More from the Electronic Telegraph Day-night hit parade captures spirit of Nineties By Mark Nicholas THIS was razzmatazz, 21st century style, and a jam-packed Lancaster Park loved it. New floodlights sparkled from the top of the gigantic 200ft steel towers that reached into the night and though, for a time in the middle of the evening, a drizzle was swept across the ground by the warm summer wind, no one much cared. They were too busy absorbing the assurance of the Surrey stroke-makers, Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe, the guts in the New Zealand fightback and the extravagant musical routines which kept the carnival alive. Some 25,000 Christchurchers came to see the lights, and with the novelty came bright new clothing, dark new shoes, see-through sightscreens and policemen balded by barbers in the worthy name of charity. To top it all, military helicopters flew in low over the play - la Apocalypse Now - to give the television cameras their ever-increasing privilege. Call it surreal, call it sensational but don't doubt for a minute that That's Entertainment. Ten minutes before play began the players lined up in front of the Hadlee Stand while their anthems played. New Zealand's cricketers sang about God defending their country in their uniform of powerful Pacific Green which was splashed by the beloved black and highlighted by the silver fern which proudly covers their chest. England sang of God and Queen in shades of light blue, and stripes of claret and white. Blazed across their hearts were the three lions and writ large beneath the lions was the future, the ECB logo that will take a reshaped English game into the millennium and beyond. It would do English cricket no harm to examine the shenanigan in Christchurch last night, to take stock of the unashamed approach in giving the consumer a good time and to rid itself of the devotion to tradition that one-day cricket does not have anyway. New Zealand are no commercial cowboys but they understand the Nineties, the people who live in them, the competition from other less searching entertainment, so they are turning one-day cricket into a party. In this series of five one-day internationals the marketing men have decreed that each player shall have his own choice of music to accompany him to the crease. Being modern millies, all 22 on view went for rock or pop, or rave or soul, or acid or disco. Some revealed themselves: man-of-the-match Phil Tufnell avenging the accusations of the past 48 hours with the Oasis song Cigarettes and Alcohol; Darren Gough planning to bop with Katrina and the Waves singing Walking on Sunshine. Gough was not required to bat or to bop but Glamorgan's Robert Croft was and with whom did he bow as he thumped consecutive winning boundaries through cover? Tom Jones, of course, and Delilah, circa the Sixties. ALEC Stewart chose Summer of '69 to announce his flamboyant display. Not that Bryan Adams had a touch on the New Zealand Board's choice of mid-over motivation that included Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones and The Eye of the Tiger, which were used to galvanise New Zealand's game attempt to get back into the match. It didn't work, much like Lee Germon's choice of KC and the Sunshine Band chorusing with That's The Way I Like It fell a little flat, but then it's teething time in the Tinsel Town of cricket that should be lauded for its efforts to take the old game to the new people. Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)