For most of the evening, Glenn Phillips looked like the safest investment on the field.

He batted with clarity. Against spin, anything too full was driven straight, anything too short pulled with control. He finished as New Zealand's top-scorer without appearing to force the pace.

With the ball, he delivered a crucial breakthrough. Harry Brook looked to make room but Phillips, bowling his offbreaks from round the wicket, drifted the ball away. It meant the shot travelled much straighter into the hands of long-off instead of much squarer, where Brook's intention had been to clear the 62-metre boundary.

Minutes later, Phillips sprinted in from the deep and dived forward to take a low catch inches above the turf. It was sharp, instinctive, and got rid of Jacob Bethell, who was set and posing a threat.

It felt like the making of one of those complete T20 nights for Phillips, the kind where one player seems to sit at the centre of the action and the game appears to move in rhythm with him. Runs, wickets, catches. Influence in every phase.

Then came the inflection point.

England needed 43 from three overs. The decision to hand Phillips the ball was not casual. It was a call built on evidence gathered through the evening. The pitch had rewarded spin. England had bowled 16 overs of it in the first innings, the most they have sent down in a T20I, and had even turned to Will Jacks for the 18th over earlier in the night, when he removed Phillips. The match had already shown how a part-time offspinner could tilt its direction.

With two right-handers at the crease, Phillips' offbreaks would spin into them and, in theory, invite hits to the longer part of the ground, where batters had been caught in the deep. The dimensions mattered. The surface mattered. The match-ups mattered. It was the sort of decision that feels right in the moment because it has logic layered into it.

There were fewer obvious alternatives than hindsight suggests. Ish Sodhi had already conceded 21 in two overs. The seamers had been used in defined bursts and had not found exaggerated assistance at the death in the previous match on this strip. In fact, Sri Lanka had bowled three of the last four overs with pace and paid the price, with Santner putting the bowlers to the sword over the short boundary.