New Delhi, 17 Jan 2014: Underdogs New Zealand put paid to the aspirations of 4th ranked England edging them out with a 7-6 scoreline in the shoot-out after the regulation time play resulted in a 3-3 deadlock at the Hero World Hockey League Final here on Friday.

After they lost to England 1-5 in the pool matches, the Black Sticks did a good job to score the equalizer to force a shoot out and then kept cool to win from the third attempt in sudden death.

The Kiwis should have taken an early lead after forcing four penalty corners in quick succession but English custodian George Pinner was up to the task thwarting all their attempts. However, in the 12th minute, Marcus Child provide the lead but failed to increase the margin hitting the side boards a few minutes later.

England restored parity in the 23rd minute when Harry Martin dived to reach a mark Mark Gleghorne cross and slammed it home.

Early in the second half, both the teams played defensive hockey waiting for the turn-overs and it was England who forged ahead in the 49the minute with a sortie from the right flank and Mark Gleghorne doing the honours this time around.

The reverse, forced the New Zealand players to increase the tempo and they switched over to attacking hockey and at the same time fell back in numbers to defend. The sustained attack got them two goals in the space of two minutes. First they earned a short corner in the 61st minute and Stephen Jenness made no mistake with the flick and a minute later Hugo Inglis put them in the lead scoring over the head of an advancing English goalie George Pinner.

But the lead failed to stand for long as a goal-bound English skipper Barry Middleton was obstructed, two minutes later, and the umpire showed towards the dreaded spot without any hesitation. Ashley Jackson found the net without any fuss to make it even stevens and it stayed 3-3 till the end.

In the shootout, both teams scored thrice and missed twice. Later, in the sudden death Ashley Jackson, Tom Carson and Nick Catlin scored for England while Hugo Inglis, Simon Child and Steve Edwards were successful for New Zealand. With both sides scoring thrice and missing once in the sudden death, it boiled down to the fourth attempt where Harry Martin missed for England while the Kiwis jumped in relief and joy as Phil Burrows took them to the finals and became the star for the Black Sticks with a successful conversion after his 8 second, one-on-one battle with the rival goalie, the new FIH invention instead of Penalty Strokes to attract more crowds.

ends