by Michael McCann

England will look to square their one-day international series with New Zealand when the teams meet at Trent Bridge today.

The hosts trail 2-1 after defeats at both the Oval and the Rose Bowl recently, after winning the opening clash at Egbaston comfortably.

Five of the six innings between both teams have involved totals of over 300 and the pitch in Nottingham, known for being relatively flat, should prompt further high-scoring.

New Zealand will be without Trent Boult for the rest of the series through a stress injury to his back — the left-arm seamer was an unexpected absentee from the third match of the series and will now fly home.

England may name a side unchanged from the team that lost to the Kiwis in Southampton after incoming bowlers Mark Wood and David Willey both did reasonably well.

Wood claimed tidy figures of 1-48 while Willey was more expensive in taking 3-69, though the 25-year-old did dismiss three of the visitors’ top four.

That included centurions Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor, who remain key batsman for the visitors — the pair have scored 542 runs at an average of above 90 between them in this series.

New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum is surprisingly yet to notch a half-century, while his opposite number Eoin Morgan seeks a third successive one after recent scores of 71 and 88.

The Dubliner has maintained that England will continue with the aggressive style of cricket that has marked their response to a horrible World Cup campaign.

Jason Roy and Alex Hales, the latest combination of opening batsman to be tried by England, will seek to show the true extent of their potential — the pair are exciting to watch but share just one 50 in the series so far.

Hales has been impressed with England’s performance so far.

“We’re pretty inexperienced so the way the three games have gone, we’ve pretty much matched the Kiwis so far and played some really good cricket, so in terms of how inexperienced we are and how raw we are, I think we’ve done pretty well,” said Hales.