Jonny Bairstow believes the series decider against New Zealand can provide England with valuable experience ahead of the World Cup in 2019.
Bairstow, who scored 138 in the fourth game in Dunedin, smashed a 58-ball century with eight boundaries and six sixes as he combined with Alex Hales (61) in a 155-run opening stand in flawless batting conditions.
It took an 84-run seventh-wicket stand between Santner and Henry Nicholls to add some respectability to the New Zealand tally.
Bairstow and Alex Hales put on 155 for the first wicket as England rampaged towards their small target of 224.
The 34-year-old, who carved a match-winning 181 not out in the fourth match in Dunedin on Wednesday, injured his quadricep while batting in that match.
Led by Man of the Series Chris Woakes, England were outstanding with the new ball - never letting New Zealand get off to a flyer and twice keeping them to under three-an-over in the first 10.
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England are looking for a ninth victory in their last 10 ODI series and Bairstow believes the fixture - which starts at 10pm GMT - will go some way to replicating the pressure of a knockout match in the World Cup. Yet England have bucked the trend this winter, winning 4-1 in Australia as well as 3-2 in New Zealand, by bringing in highly skilled and relatively fresh 50-over cricketers to augment their Test players who excel in every format - about half and half. Finally England got the series as the better team.
New Zealand's test squad will be predictable with wicketkeeper BJ Watling likely to be the only major change from the side that beat the West Indies 2-0 in early December. This was also his highest scoring in ODIs and the highest ever for New Zealand in a chase.
He has been named in a New Zealand XI side to face England in a two-day red ball match in Hamilton on Friday and Saturday, but Hesson said he was "unlikely" to play in that. "If they don't with the two new balls, it can all be against us, especially when you've got two guys at the top of the order who can be so destructive". Hales's tumbling effort at deep square leg set the standard, only for Bairstow to better it two balls later: a one-handed grab after scarpering along the boundary, within a whisker of the sponge, accounting for Tim Southee.
It needed three from the last over: the first two balls bowled by Tom Curran yielded no run, but Nicholls hit the third for six into the midst of an excited crowd to end the game.
Former New Zealand captain Jeremy Coney on Test Match Special: "New Zealand's middle order looked to me as though they didn't know how to defend spin bowling, let alone attack it. Chapman's dismissal was bad". It was clean hitting.
Eoin Morgan, in his 200th ODI, won a crucial toss and backed his bowlers in the field. New Zealand came to bat bat did not present very handsome total. That's something I'm really trying to set my marker out to do.
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