Those of us who expected a spirited fight back from the New Zealanders on the forth and what became the final day of the first test of the Trans Tasman Cup at the Gabba were disappointed. Indians waking up on a Sunday morning did so to the cricket news that the Kiwis had already succumbed to the Aussie attack before most people in the Indian subcontinent rose. The live cricket of this match has been fascinating to watch, with wickets tumbling and the live scoreboard being dominated by the bowlers rather than the batsmen for a change.

While we at Cricket360 predicted a win for the Aussies and the match not lasting its full complement of 5 days, we have to admit that we would have been happier with more of a fight back from the Kiwi team which had looked good for sometime yesterday when the live scoreboard stood at 134 for the loss of 4 wickets and Ross Taylor still at the crease. However there wasn’t much resistance from the Kiwis this morning when the visitors managed to add only 34 runs to the live scoreboard and the tail succumbed without much of a fight.

Mitchell Johnson, who took four Kiwi wickets in their first innings, bettered this by one when he took one more in the second Kiwi inning and finished off with a nine wicket haul in the test match with a man of the match award as well. It was a tossup whether it was Johnson or Simon Katich’s match winning 131 that was deserving of the man of the match award. However it was perhaps appropriate that in a match where the live scorecard was so dominated by the bowlers, the man of the match award should go to a bowler.

"Good to get back on a nice and bouncy track. I felt pretty good back in India; I like to hit the deck hard. Me and Clark bowl well as a unit." said Johnson. The win probably worked as a balm for Ricky Ponting still smarting from the humiliation of being roundly defeated by India in their last test series said that "We didn't have the best of games but it feels good to bounce back. We came to Brisbane after 6-7 weeks in India so out batsmen were a bit underprepared for the conditions. Hopefully our batsmen can get better in Adelaide. We're going to have to work a lot harder down there to get wickets. To get two late wickets last night was always a bonus."

So stay tuned to Cricket360 to bring you the daily cricket update for the second test at Adelaide.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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