Ben Duckett scored his first century in a year and England captain Ben Stokes sparked a fightback in the third and deciding Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge after Jacob Bethel pulled back his first-innings blues.
At the close of play on the second day, England were 223/2, 215 runs behind New Zealand’s first innings total of 438, with the series level at 1-1.
Opening batsman Duckett scored 113 to the delight of a sun-drenched Nottinghamshire home crowd.
After Emilio Kay fell to duck out, he quickly shared 179 in 30 overs for the second wicket with Bethel (74 not out).
England’s 8/1 should have been 8/2 and Duckett, responsible for all eight of those runs, bowled a routine chance at third slip only for Henry Nicholls to drop Nathan Smith.
But England owed much to Stokes’ recent inspired bowling as the Black Caps, set to 361/2 from a total of 500, lost their last eight wickets for 77 runs.
The seamer led England’s attack with figures of 4/70 from 21 overs, which took him to 250 Test wickets, with much of Stokes’ success coming in a burst of 3/13 from eight overs on Friday morning.
While celebrating in a London nightclub following their first Test victory over New Zealand at Lord’s, the second Test at the Oval was handed a 253-run defeat to England with Gus Atkinson in Stokes’ side for breaking the midnight curfew.
It was Stokes who inspired England’s comeback late on Thursday by dismissing Devon Conway (157) to end an opening stand of 317 with New Zealand skipper Tom Latham (151), and it was Stokes who got the rest of his attack moving.
On a day when the temperature reached 36C, Stokes again got the breakthrough England needed when Daryl Mitchell (11) was caught behind.
Stokes struck again when nightwatchman Will O’Rourke (19) raced to point.
New Zealand were reduced to 413/7 when a well-directed bouncer from Stokes caught Mitchell Santner in trouble, the ball ballooning to give the all-rounder his 250th Test wicket.
Apart from the retired South African Jacques Kallis, Stokes is the only player to have scored more than 7,000 runs in Test cricket while taking at least 250 wickets.
After lunch, off-spinner Shoaib Basheer caught Smith off the bowling and Tom Blundell lbw for 30 before Jofra Archer ended the innings with a golden duck to Ben Sears lbw.
Duckett stepped up quickly in New Zealand without the injured Matt Henry, who took 11 wickets at the Oval, and Kyle Jamieson rested as a precaution following a recurring back injury, and England had to toil in the scorching heat as they had done before them.
New Zealand suffered further setbacks when the recalled Blair Tickner was hit on the helmet by pacer Archer while batting, finishing just three overs before being ruled out with concussion.
Tickner was replaced by fellow fast bowler Zach Foulkes, who was named New Zealand’s first concussion replacement in Test cricket.
The 31-year-old Duckett, who scored his first fifty in 11 months, was fierce with both pace and spin.
After Duckett squared Smith off Nicholls, he drove Smith for four and the slow-returning left-hander grabbed anything loose from Santner.
A boundary from fast bowler O’Rourke took him to 98, completing a quick single century in 88 balls, including 18 boundaries, as the oft-reserved Duckett punched the air in joy after reaching his seventh hundred in 46 Tests.
Duckett was dismissed shortly after when he pulled Nathan Smith, but by then England were 187/2.
He was ably supported by fellow left-armer Bethel, who came to Nottingham with a poor average of 8.75 in the first innings of a Test match.
The 22-year-old made a mockery of that statistic with eight fours off 60 balls, and he also thrived in better batting conditions.