Crucket

New Zealand defeats Australia by 6 wickets. Neither team was really trying. And in the absence of effort, New Zealand was the better natural team. They fielded and bowled well (only 5 extras given away). Then they paced their innings impeccably perfectly. Raw efficiency.

0-2 down and the Aussie commentators still reckon they are man-to-man the better team. Well maybe this Australian team has a greater potential, but it’s not coming to them naturally.

MGMT:

From the Cricinfo commentary:

Brad Haddin walks out. Brydon observes: “There were more jeers than cheers for Haddin when he walked to the crease … the players say they’ve put Perth behind them but the fans still remember.”

Also, Haddin misses out on an IPL contract.

So Ponting wants to a replay before he’ll accept Haddin is a cheat. He must be pissed that the issue of integrity has come up again, second year in a row. Well the replays have been available for hours now. Haddin himself is taking the high-stakes option of turning the attack onto Vettori.

Haddin said of the incident “This game is gone and we move onto the next one.” There are some however that think that Ronchi could be playing the next one. Well, there are five days before the next match; plenty of time to consider that issue. It bears recalling however, that the last time something similar occurred – Greg Dyer’s catch that wasn’t, of course – led to Healy getting his big chance. The subtle difference however is that NZ won this game, in spite of.

Here’s a video of the highlights of the last few overs of last night’s game for those who slept through them:

And here’s the Phoenix Foundation, as a celebration:

Hoodyhoo! I could only make it to midnight, with us at 67/4, Taylor on 24. For the last hour or so, I was only catching about 3 balls an over and dozing through the others. When I turned the radio off, the game was very much in the balance. Needless to say, I did not sleep well for the rest of the night. So it was fantastic to be welcomed by the clock radio reporting that Vettori scored the winning runs off the last ball.

Taking 50 complete overs to score 182 makes it sound like the target was at the limits of our reach, but in fact that is just how we roll. An awesome victory despite the narrow margin.

Listening to the game on the radio was a strange experience, not just due to me drifting in and out of sleep. Between tours of Australia I always manage to forget just how one-eyed the Aussie commentators are, and it is a shock to be reminded. To be honest, they had Justin Langer in the commentary booth, who made most of the more egregious comments. Of course, he captained the warmup match Friday, where he beat New Zealand, so he is an expert on our weaknesses. But I doubt his comments would have been different had his team been thrashed last week. He was completely incapable of registering what was happening in front of him. With Aus at 97/5 after 30 he was predicting a score of 250.

Here are some examples of the sort of thing he was saying (egregiously paraphrased of course, but still vaguely accurate):

I was spewing when I heard the result of a poll – excellent cricket shot there by Fulton! – a poll that said that nearly 50% of people thought we’d lose the series against New Zealand.

The Aussies have clearly been taking solace in the fact that in losing to South Africa they lost to the (then) 2nd ranked team in the world. They are having difficulty accepting that they might not dominate the 4th ranked team.

There must be something in the pitch that we don’t know about. These kiwi bowlers who have been average for such a long time don’t become world class overnight.

That’d be Mills and Vettori I take it, numbers 5 and 1 in the world.

If New Zealand lose this match chasing this total then I predict a 5-0 result in the series.

And yet it was Australia who lost…

Alright. South Africa lead the CB Series after the first leg and have confirmed their qualification for the (nonexistant) finals. Here are the standings:

The second finals spot will basically be fought over in a straight contest in the five Aus–NZ matches. Australia appears to have the advantage because they carry over 4 points. However, ultimately they will have to win the overall contest with New Zealand – a 2-3 loss will leave them on the same points as NZ, but NZ will go through on head-to-heads. It could all come down to bonus points.