Aussie bowlers hurts Kewi batting very badly, almost won half of the match, because the form of Australia Team shows us that they have a ability to chase that small total very easily. The biggest loss of today match is Kewi Captain Vettori misses due to his Hamstring Injury.
All three fast bowlers were fast, accurate and menacing, Nathan Hauritz was canny on a pitch that assisted him, and Shane Watson was stable. As a result New Zealand never had space to themselves: the first time their run-rate crossed four an over was at the end of the 43rd over, but they had lost seven wickets by then and had consumed the batting Powerplay. Ricky Ponting was proactive in attacking: even during two sizable partnerships, he had aggressive field sets, and he brought back all of his three strike bowlers in the middle overs to try and get breakthroughs.
A bad start for New Zealand got worse when Brendon McCullum, the stand-in captain, fell for a 14-ball duck. McCullum's dismissal seemed inevitable. Right from the off, Brett Lee and Peter Siddle hit the mid-to-late 140s, and Lee got consistent outswing too. Three tight overs were enough to frustrate McCullum into cutting a Siddle delivery that was too close to him.
Martin Guptill and Aaron Redmond weathered the storm that the three Aussie fast men worked up, but they were not helped by the field settings, which refused to give them cheap singles. Most of Guptill's boundaries were top-quality shots, but they were too sporadic for Australia to push fields back. A 61-run stand was ended by smart bowling from Hauritz in the 19th over, who smartly pushed one wide when he saw Redmond charging out. That stumping set New Zealand back again, and into another phase of rebuilding, at 66 for 2 in the 19th over. Hauritz, getting good bite out of the pitch, and Mitchell Johnson, coming back to trouble both right-hand batsmen from round the stumps, made that job extremely difficult.
Hauritz then got the big wicket, the free-stroking Guptill, which was just reward for aggressive and varied offspin bowling. Ponting was not satisfied with two wickets in quick time, he got slips in and asked Johnson and Lee attack furthermore. Ross Taylor, who twice edged to short of slip deliveries from Johnson straightening from a sharp round-the-wicket angle, finally played an impatient shot, a drive away from his body, and Michael Hussey took a well-judged overhead catch at point. Lee produced a vicious inswinging yorker to get rid of Grant Elliott, and James Franklin and Neil Broom were left to try and survive the 50 overs.
From 94 for 5 Franklin and Broom took New Zealand to 133 for 5 in 38 overs, and for the first time looked in a position to attack the bowlers. Accordingly they called for the Powerplay, and got 26 off the first 16 balls. Just then a terrible misunderstanding between the batsmen, off a wide fulltoss no less, sent Broom back, and Australia were on the attack again. Another Lee yorker took care of Franklin, and the last four could manage 34 in the last eight.
Waqas Anis writer aashubutt.blogspot.com
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