Australia win by 91 runs after Zimbabwe spinners put on good show – ICC World Cup 2011 Match Analysis
Australia defeated Zimbabwe by 91 runs in a group ‘A’ match of the ICC World Cup 2011 at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, Ahmedabad yesterday. Zimbabwe did put up a good fight in the initial stages of the match through its spinners but could not keep the
pressure on the Aussies. The Rhodesians let the Kangaroo’s off the hook in the latter half of Australia’s innings and the batsmen capitalised.
There were hopes that Zimbabwe would be able to repeat its performance of the ICC World T20 2007 when it defeated the world champions in the preliminary round but that was not the case here. The Aussies did struggle to score runs against Raymond http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Price-c82662 and
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120 broke free later on to make sure that the defending champions posted a competitive total of 262 runs for the loss of six wickets.
Australia struggled during the warm up matches and was comprehensively defeated by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757. However the Kangaroos were quite impressive today because they did not panic in a difficult situation. Australia is without its premier middle order
batsman, Michael Hussey, but all the top order batsmen contributed to help their team’s cause in the win.
Zimbabwe’s bowlers played well and did not give too much away to the Australian batsmen but Chigumbura and company lacked the fire power. The Zimbabweans were not able to take wickets at regular intervals. This is the basic reason the Aussies were able to
pull away in the second half of the innings. Price, Utseya and Cremer picked up a wicket each but were unable to break the batting order. Christopher Mpofu took a couple of wickets but not before giving away 58 runs in his nine overs.
Zimbabwe was off to a promising start but lost its way very quickly and was bowled out for only 171 runs in the 47th over of the innings. Charles Coventry, Brendon http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Williams-c98034 took starts but failed to carry on and play big innings.
Zimbabwe wanted one of them to play the role of a sheet-anchor but that was never going to happen against a strong pace attack.
The most pleasing thing for Tim Nielsen and Ricky Ponting was the spell of Mitchell Johnson who bowled with good accuracy. Johnson is a wicket-taker and has the ability to run through even the best of batting lineups in the world. He took four wickets to
break the back of the Rhodesian batting. Shaun Tait, Brett Lee and Jason Krejza also bowled well.
Overall it was a good game for Ponting and his boys. The win should boost morale and give them a lot of confidence before the crunch game against the Kiwis this week. Bowling has been http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746’s major worry since the retirement of Shane Warne and Glen McGrath
but Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson have shown marked improvement in the One Day format.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045 can also walk with a lot of positives from this match. The spinners bowled particularly well and could help Zimbabwe clinch a couple of victories in the upcoming group matches and help them create a place for themselves in the later stages of the
tournament. Look for Zimbabwe to surprise this year in its campaign for the ICC World Cup.
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