Crucket

A very nice win by New Zealand. Defending 142 was quite an achievement and it took Vettori’s 2 for 11, Bond’s 4 runs in the 19th over and Oram’s hat-trick as well as the other contributions. It was a team effort really.

141 should not have been enough to win. Which raises the question, what is a winning score in a 20-20?

141 is the lowest score that New Zealand has ever defended and 142 is the lowest target Sri Lanka have ever failed to chase down. In fact, it is a bit of an outlier in the spectrum of results for both teams. If we discard last night’s game, then a figure of about 165 emerges as a boundary between winning and losing totals. Sri Lanka has never chased down a target greater than 165 and New Zealand has never defended a total less than 164 (barring last night’s game), having once failed and once succeeded to defend 164.

Edit: To make the point clearer, apart from last night’s game, Sri Lanka have chased down every total of 165 or less they have faced and failed to chase down every score higher than that, while NZ have successfully defended every total below 164 and failed to defend every total greater (and once failed and once succeeded to defend 164). There definitely seems to be some threshold of winnability in the 160s.

Pixies (playing in NZ in March, but Auckland is just so far away):