Mascarenhas shows all-round brilliance to fire England to victory in Auckland

Compelling evidence that he was right came again today with another flurry of sixes that got England's New Zealand tour off to the perfect start.

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Mascarenhas, born in London to Sri Lankan parents and raised in Australia, had to wait until he was almost 30 and Duncan Fletcher had departed before England finally accepted Warne was not simply being loyal to a Hampshire team-mate.

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Since then he has proved he has the priceless knack of clearing the boundary when his team need it most, an asset that lifted England to a 32-run victory in the first Twenty20 international at a packed and raucous Eden Park.

This opening salvo of a two-month tour that England desperately need to go well was in the balance as they stuttered in the middle overs. Kevin Pietersen had looked set to propel them to a score in excess of 200 but was cut off in his prime by Ross Taylor's brilliant diving catch.

England then scored only five runs between the 13th and 15th overs and were in trouble at 122 for five, having been put in by New Zealand, before Mascarenhas' fine display of clean hitting. He, remember, is the man who struck Yuvraj Singh for five successive sixes at the Oval last September.

"I just said to Colly (Paul Collingwood) that whoever was bowling I was going to go after because we had almost just played out a maiden the over before and we needed runs," said Mascarenhas. "He told me to back myself. It helped it was a short boundary and the wind was with us but the bowler put a few in the slot and they went out of the park."

That unfortunate bowler was Jeetan Patel, brought into the New Zealand team to replace injured captain Daniel Vettori, who saw four successive balls fly long, straight and high for six in an over that cost 26 and shifted the momentum firmly back towards England. They never relinquished it again.

The very fact that the off-spinner was bowling was in itself a contentious issue for New Zealand.

Stand-in captain Brendon McCullum had previously thrown the ball to the colourful debutant 'Big' Jesse Ryder and saw him take the wicket of Owais Shah and, just as importantly, go for only two runs in his first over of international cricket.

Then, inexplicably, McCullum took Ryder off and turned instead to Patel at the end which offered the incentive of a boundary barely longer than 50 yards on this rugby-ground-cum-oddly-shaped cricket stadium.

So was McCullum wrong to take Ryder off for that fateful 16th over?

"What do you think?" he smiled. "In hindsight absolutely I was wrong but at the time I had to go with my gut feeling which was to turn to a bowler who has produced some outstanding performances over the last couple of years.

"Jesse was the option to break the partnership which he did and then I thought going back to Jeets was the smart thing to do. It didn't turn out that way but you have to go with your gut and ride it out."

The wicketkeeper's mistake allowed England to reach a highly competitive 184 for eight, Mascarenhas falling for 31 off 14 balls, before their bowlers completed the job with an energetic and penetrative display.

It augers well for the forthcoming one-day encounters against a side who reached the World Cup semi-finals last year and ended England's involvement in the inaugural World Twenty20 in South Africa last September.

At the centre of it was that man Mascarenhas, whose promising initial forays into international cricket last summer were halted by a poor World Twenty20 tournament and his failure to break into the 50-over side on the slow pitches of Sri Lanka last October.

In front of a 30,000 Auckland crowd, which lived up to its reputation as one of the most noisily partisan in the world, Mascarenhas took two key wickets for a frugal 19 runs in his four overs, backing up a splendid new-ball burst from the increasingly impressive Ryan Sidebottom.

Only Jacob Oram, who provided some brutal blows of his own in his 61 from 40 balls, kept the contest faintly alive before New Zealand's reply petered out in the final over. The only thing Mascarenhas did wrong all night was a wild throw in attempting an unlikely run-out which hurtled past the stumps and went for five runs.

No matter. This was a good start by England and they will go into Thursday's second and final Twenty20 match in Christchurch in good heart against what is looking like a vulnerable New Zealand side. Even the questionable decision to leave Alastair Cook out of their team did not come back to haunt them.

This was also another good night for Twenty20 cricket with the spectators being treated to more thrills, strokeplay and aggressive bowling in just over three hours then they could expect from any 50-over international.

Once again, the five fully fledged one-day internationals which quickly follow here are likely to look tame in comparison to this.