As it happened - England vs New Zealand, Men's T20 World Cup, 1st semi-final

James Neesham contemplated retirement in 2017. He didn’t. Daryl Mitchell never contemplated opening the batting. He did. And together they dragged a New Zealand side that was adamantly trying to lose all the way into a T20 World Cup final.

It was big-hitting madness. And it came from outta nowhere. England, much like they did five years ago on a sparkling night in Kolkata, had the game in their hands. And not one but two big-hitting allrounders took it away from them.

He whacks two of the first three balls of the 19th over from Chris Woakes into the stands.

New Zealand, from outta nowhere, are going to make the T20 World Cup final!

James Neesham came in with the equation 60 off 29.

He's brought it down to 21 off 14!

And he's gone! England know what it is like to have a T20 World Cup taken away from them by a big-hitting allrounder.

They would have been having horrible flashbacks of that night in 2016, but now Rashid has given them relief by Adil Rashid to end the 18th over

What an over!

It starts with Chris Jordan missing his length and being pumped out of the park over deep square leg.

His plan is to cramp Neesham, so he's going to bowl legside, but he misses his lengths. Badly.

So he goes to plan B. Wide outside off. Slower ball wide outside off. Neesham has to hit though. He winds up and sweeps it high into the night sky.

Jonny Bairstow, moving to his left from long-on, tries to get under it. The momentum is taking him back to the boundary. He takes the catch but he knows he's going to end up out of bounds so he lobs it over to Livingstone who was coming in from deep midwicket. England thought they had a relay catch but replays show Bairstow's knee was touching the rope as he fell back taking the catch.

This is England's most expensive over of the tournament. NZ 133 for 4. They need 34 off 18.

NZ were 107 for 3 after 15 overs. England at the same stage were 110 for 2. This game was still be on the edge. But Liam Livingstone the only man who has hit more T20 sixes than Glenn Phillips in 2021 has dismissed Glenn Phillips who was looking to hit him for six.

Part-timer Livingstone tonight

First over

Second over

Third over

Fourth over

This team prides itself in being on cutting edge pf both batting and bowling. But in Abu Dhabi - where cricket takes a time machine back to the 90s - they realised knocking it around for 160 and building on scoreboard pressure with tight Test-match lengths had the better chance of success. That kind of clarity in a World Cup semi-final is rare.

Moeen Ali and Dawid Malan took care of the first part of that equation. Chris Woakes took care of the second.

All three men tend to be overshadowed in this England team. But here, on one of the biggest nights of their lives, they have shone the brightest.

Early sightings of Devon Conway confirmed a couple of things. He is a lovely shot-maker on the off side. And he doesn't always like it on the body. He's not vulnerable to the short ball. But he certainly is inconvenienced by it, especially at high pace.

New Zealand have seen that and pulled him down the order to maximise his strength - he's glorious against spin and he showed it against Adil Rashid, picking his googly and cutting it for four, and later in the same over dancing down the track, getting to the pitch of the ball and launching it through extra cover.

That however was a very small bright spot in this chase for the Black Caps, who by the eighth over, according to our forecaster, have only a 20% chance of winning this game

Woakes took out Guptill.

Woakes takes out Williamson.

England are in seventh heaven.

And to make things even sweeter there doesn't seem to be a lot of dew out there.

History is against them. And now it's gotten worse with Chris Woakes - who came back into this T20 team after six years - picking up the key wicket of Martin Guptill.

The ball stops on the right-hander, who is through his flick shot too early, and is caught at mid-on.

Now that suggests there isn't a lot of dew out there. Dew that would've made this chase slightly easier. Dew that Williamson was counting on when he chose to chase.

Moeen Ali.

He lost his England contract not so long ago. He confessed that it broke him.

Before this tournament, he retired from Test cricket, saying he just wasn't feeling it anymore.

This is a player with enormous talent. A batter who can hit a century in fifty balls or less. A bowler who can be so good that he has been called Moeen Alitharan.

He's just not had as many opportunities to bat where he is most devastating - in the top order - in this England team. But as a result of injury, he came up at No. 4, he rebuilt the innings along with Dawid Malan and then even helped finish it, totalling 51 off 37 balls.

England 166 for 4 and in a knockout match that might just be enough...

New Zealand are desperately trying to stay away from Livingstone's hitting arc.

Adam Milne began well - tucking him up with short balls or hiding it outside off stump - but he didn't close out the over well. A slot ball on 17.6 went for an 88m six over the top of his head.

Boult follows up in the 19th over, trying to use his left-armer's angle and keep the ball wiiiiiide outside off. But Livingstone manages to reach one and clatters it to the left of long-off.

It's not as if England aren't trying. It's just that they're being shot-blocked.

Malan was the one who launched their first six. But in trying to repeat it, he fell, because the ball he faced was a foot or so fuller than he thought.

Moeen launched their second six in the 17th over. And kept looking for more. But Sodhi, the bowler, either went wide of the batter, past his hitting arc, or cramped him with quick, flat deliveries on the pads, to limit his hitting arc.

It's been a lovely battle and it's only going to get hotter.

Dawid Malan is a left-hander. And he's all timing. That means when he plays a cover drive, the entire world stops.

A little step forward and a full flow of the hands. That's all it takes for the ball to skip away. Malan has had plenty of opportunities to free the arms in this innings and he's cashed in. All four of his boundaries have come through that region.

Fifty partnership between Malan and Moeen. England rebuilding. 110 for 2 in 15 overs

A slower ball to start. Tight to the stumps.

Then full and fast and outside off.

Then a yorker to Malan.

And another slower ball, except it's short and it beats Moeen Ali.

Fast bowling is the greatest thing anyone can do on a cricket field. Running in like that and bowling like the wind gives you the feeling that you are, well, more than human.

But in T20, you have to check that. You have to check that ego. And you have to be unpredictable.

Adam Milne has learned that the hard way and he's proving here what an asset he is to this New Zealand line-up.

Ish Sodhi isn't great against England. He has a double-digit economy rate against them. But he is a legspinner. With all the tricks. So he'll always be a threat.

All through this tournament he's struck in the first over. Mohammad Rizwan. Rohit Sharma. Here NZ had to wait till his second over to strike and boy was it a big one.

Jos Buttler loaded up a reverse sweep. But given this was a flatter legbreak, that Sodhi pushed through, it comes on a little quicker and catches the batter midway through the shot. That's a bad place to be. It's where most people think they'd be because of the inherent complexity of a shot like a reverse sweep. But Buttler is not most people. He backs himself. He's had immense success with this shot. Just not here as Sodhi gets it to thud into his front pad and right in front of off stump.

Jos Buttler's hands are magnificent. Magicians all over Vegas are sending a quiet prayer thanking the universe for never letting him pick up their craft because all of them would be out of business.

There was a shot in the second over. Trent Boult had all but beaten him by going wide outside off. But all Buttler did is reach out just a tiny bit more and roll his wrists on the point of contact and the ball sped away to the cover boundary.

Buttler's power game is entirely in his hands - but it is enabled by a clear head and impeccable and often minimal footwork.

Now usually that's a no-no in cricket. You're gonna have to move your feet to get into the right position to play your shots. But for Buttler the right position is beside the ball - so that he has some room to free the arms. So he takes guard on leg stump. He doesn't move his feet across. All to make sure he has the room to free those magnificent hands.

The first three overs had all the feels of a boxing match, with two heavyweights still just feeling each other out.

Then Jos Buttler went for a couple of right hooks.

New Zealand don't get major billing because of a lack of superstars. But very few teams assess conditions as quickly or as well as they do, and even fewer are able to exploit it.

They know Abu Dhabi has pace and bounce. They know it's the quicks that get you wickets here. And an early one against England is VITAL. Their openers are their biggest weapons and getting them out early can be deeeeecisive.

So Tim Southee was given a third over within the powerplay. Once he was done, on came Adam Milne, and all the pressure that was created earlier results in a wicket as Jonny Bairstow tries to force a good ball outside off over the top and gets caught at mid-off.

Tim Southee beat Jos Buttler in the first over.

Trent Boult beat Jonny Bairstow in the second over.

The first one had late swing, with Buttler drawn into the shot thinking he had an easy push through cover, and then done by the movement.

The other was even more vicious. It began to swing in, which is what Bairstow set himself up for, then it pitched and seamed away. Too good.

Abu Dhabi has been fairly friendly to fast bowlers. Kane Williamson expected some movement as well. Here it is and it's keeping England honest. 13 for 0 after three overs

This has all the feels of a boxing match, with two heavyweights still just feeling each other out.

Jarrod Kimber takes a deep dive into Jos Buttler's T20 game and comes out saying he is the freakiest batter in the format

Tails calls Williamson, it's a tail, and New Zealand will bowl.

"It's a good surface. Perhaps a little bit of dew later. So make use of the surface first up," says Williamson. Same team

New Zealand 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Daryl Mitchell, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Devon Conway (wk), 5 Glenn Phillips, 6 James Neesham, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Adam Milne, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Trent Boult.

"We would've bowled too for obvious reasons. It's a trend in the tournament. Hopefully [the toss] doesn't decide the game," says Morgan. One change: Jason Roy is injured, Sam Billings comes in and Jonny Bairstow opens

England 1 Jos Buttler (wk), 2 Jonny Bairstow, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Moeen Ali, 7 Sam Billings, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Chris Jordan, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood

New Zealand come into this game as underdogs. They have one of the highest scoring T20I batters in the world with them. They have a left-arm quick who just can't stop picking up early wickets. And they have a captain who binds them all together to form potentially the greatest cohesive entity on earth besides duct tape. But they still come in to their fourth successive ICC tournament semi-final as underdogs. Strange, isn't it?

No one will underestimate NZ though. Because that just isn't done at this level. Because if Trent Boult gets it right, he can rip through a top-order. Because if Martin Guptill gets it right, he can pulverise a bowling attack. Because if Kane Williamson gets it right, he'll be standing up on the podium with his second World Cup trophy in four months. FOUR months!

England have had a remarkable tournament despite a litter of injuries. To arrive at the semi-final of a T20 World Cup without Ben Stokes or Jofra Archer, without missing a beat, is a symbol of the ready-made talent available at their disposal and of how everyone in the system has bought into a compelling new vision of how to play limited-overs cricket.

It isn't just the first team that is willing to throw caution to the wind. It is everyone. English cricket has undergone a cultural shift and it is for that reason that they are the favourites here. They have a plan A, but if that fails, they have someone else equally capable of executing that same plan A.

So if you go through Jos Buttler, you still have to deal with Jonny Bairstow. If you go through Jonny Bairstow, you have to deal with Moeen Ali. If you go through Moeen Ali, you have Liam Livingstone. If you go through Liam Livingstone you have the man who made all this happen. Eoin Morgan.

Plan A. Plan Attack.