After being humiliated by the visiting RSA side in both test and ODI series recently, Australia was dispossessed of both the top ODI rank and test championship trophy. Cricket360 was eager to watch their performance in the Chappell – Hadlee series against New Zealand but the hosts were played as if they too were affected by the global recession! Mills along with a determined bowling side of Kiwis, made sure that the already meandering batting line up of Aussies were not given any room to flutter its wings and the outcome was a batting collapse of the hosts at a cricket score of 181 runs with 8 balls to spare in the early innings of the first match of the tour. Chasing was not that courageous for the Blackcaps as they too were crushed to a meager score of 3/25 in the 14th over and a poor piece of umpiring also accounted for it.

But Taylor rose to the occasion and held his nerves up to add an indeed partnership of 62 runs for the 6th wicket along with Mills who was in charge of the demolishing work earlier for Kiwis. That timely scrap helped the visiting side to take home the first match of the series. Just 5 runs per over was the requirement in the last 5 overs for Kiwis with 5 wickets in hand. But before the last power play was over they lost inform Mills as he could not stop a Tait delivery from uprooting his stumps. The alarm bell was blown for the visitors when their rescuer Taylor too surrendered after a gap of just 6 balls for 64 when he spooned a catch to Clarke off Bracken. The brave lad but belted Tait for a beautiful sixer prior to that and his innings had been given life by Jhonson when his live score was 15 which proved fatal for Aussies.

Nine runs required off the last two overs with Vettori and Southee on the crease. The penultimate over could yield only 4 runs and the final clash was between Bracken and the visitors. The first delivery brought a single and on the next ball Bracken got rid off Southee to make the score alarming with the fall of 8th wicket. Kiwis could ran a ball on the next three deliveries and amidst a close tight fielding arranged by Ponting, Vettori managed to guide the last ball for a single to take home the 1st ODI by two wickets. Bracken and Tait worked hard with 3 for 35 and 2 for 40 respectively in their allotted 10 overs but could not heal the immense injury caused by their batting line up.

In the first innings of the match, Australia once again proved that they could not bring about any improvement to their dangerously declining standard of batting which had faced huge criticism during the 3 Mobile ODI Series against Proteas.  The bowling hero of the day Mills sent back both the openers Marsh and Warner who were struggling a lot to score, within the first ten overs and to add to their dismay, Ponting and Clarke got run out in similar passion trying to procure an impossible second run, thanks to the superb throws by Broom and Guptill. Michel Hussey and Haddin sweat a lot to make a 61 runs stand and once again Mills broke that rescue act by bowling Haddin for 31 runs. Hussey batted with great caution but fell one run short of his half century as he skied a O’Brien delivery to Elliot at a score of 152 runs. The Aussies journey came to a halt at 181 runs when Mills pocketed his 4th wicket by sending Jhonson back in the 48th over. The amazing performance yielded him the man of the match price.

Cricket360.com finds it difficult for Australia to regain their golden era of dominance in world cricket and they are being subjected to a great challenge to that effect by the visiting Blackcaps and they may not get the service of Marsh owing to an injury as he fell on the outfield chasing a ball.

Comments

Add New RSS

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

Newer news items:

Older news items: