Cairns hustled out England's middle order

Gough claimed the wicket of Chris Cairns two balls later, in his last over, but Astle stood firm to see his side home.

Astle got New Zealand off to a flying start and steadied the ship when Andrew Flintoff removed Chris Nevin and Craig White dismissed Brendon McCullum and Stephen Fleming cheaply.

The opener carried his bat to smash the winning runs with his fifth six, that sailed out of the ground, to become New Zealand's highest run scorer in the limited-overs game.

Cairns and Daryl Tuffey had earlier picked up three wickets apiece and were backed up by some tight bowling during England's innings.

Owais Shah and Nasser Hussain both scored half centuries and shared in a fourth wicket stand of 71, but neither batsman could cut loose.

Tuffey claimed both openers early as Trescothick and then Knight slashed short deliveries to Chris Harris at point.

Shah scored his second international half ton

Graham Thorpe followed soon after, trying to whip a straight ball from Andre Adams through midwicket and Hussain heaved Tuffey to midwicket after compiling 50 from 79 balls.

Cairns then trapped Shah lbw for 57 and bowled Flintoff, who was trying to slog a straight delivery out of the ground.

Paul Collingwood gifted the all-rounder his third wicket by slashing a wide, short delivery to Fleming at gully as Cairns finished with figures of 3-32 from his 10 overs.

Ashley Giles scored a useful 21 from 23 balls and played sensibly with White to take England past the 200 mark, but England's batsmen gave their bowlers too much to do.

New Zealand: C J Nevin (Wkt), N J Astle, B B McCullum, S P Fleming (Capt), C D McMillan, L Vincent, C L Cairns, A R Adams C Z Harris, D L Vettori, D R Tuffey.

England: M E Trescothick (Wkt), N V Knight, N Hussain (Capt) G P Thorpe, O A Shah, A Flintoff, P D Collingwood, C White A F Giles, D Gough, M J Hoggard.

Umpires: R S Dunne and D M Quested.