Daniel Vettori lauds his team’s effort after crushing win over Zimbabwe
The captain of New Zealand’s cricket team, Daniel Vettori, has lauded his team after their crushing win over http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045 in a Group ‘A’ match of the ICC World Cup 2011 played at the Motera stadium in Ahmedabad.
The Black Caps chased down 163 runs target without the loss of a single wicket to post their second 10 wicket win in the tournament.
The five time semi-finalists started the tournament in a grand fashion getting past minnows http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Kenya-c752 by 10 wickets in a match that lasted less than three hours.
They were on the receiving end of a mauling from the defending champions http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 in their second match before getting their act together against another lowly ranked team yesterday.
The Zimbabweans had little impact on the Black Caps bowling line-up and were blown away on a batting track for a meagre total.
From the outset the Black Caps reigned supreme with their disciplined bowling performance against the Africans, who were themselves on a high after dismantling the Canadians convincingly in their previous game.
Vettori, who himself snared two wickets in the win stated that he was happy with the way the team bounced back after the Aussie game as Zimbabwe had a decent batting line-up that had the potential of scoring big runs on a very flat
wicket at Motera.
"I am not sure if you can ask for too much more - we wanted a complete performance out of ourselves and right from the start we put it together. To dismiss a good Zimbabwe line-up for 160 on a very good (batting) wicket and then chase
it with ten wickets in hand, I can't really ask too much more from the guys", Vettori said, as he described his feelings after the thoroughly professional performance by a team that has struggled in recent months especially in the Subcontinent.
Vettori added that there was pressure on the team to win after the loss against Australia as the match had almost become a must win one for them.
The Kiwis have two games left against major opponents, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Canada-c748 to book a place in the knock out stage of the event, which gets underway after the pool games end in the last week of
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/March-c74391.
Vettori stated that the batting performance of the two openers, Martin Guptill, and, Brendon McCullum, was extremely impressive and they were allowed to play themselves in after the convincing bowling performance of the bowlers had left the team with a simple
task.
Guptill hammered 86 runs to win the man of the match award, while on the other hand Brendon McCullum stroked 76 runs that like the knock played by Guptill included two sixes.
The duo completed the straight forward chase in the 34th over of the innings, as the Kiwis continued their impressive run against the minnows.
Vettori, meanwhile is hoping that his team continues to improve with every game they play especially against the major teams as the knock out stage would not be easy by any stretch and one mistake in the quarters can have his team crash out of the event.
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