ICC World cup 2011- Australia v New Zealand match analysis
Australia has defeated the Kiwis by a comprehensive margin of seven wickets to seal their second consecutive victory of group ‘A’ of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 at Nagpur.
Australia’s victory was led by their fast bowlers as Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait and Brett Lee took eight wickets between them to break the back of the Kiwi batting line-up.
Ricky Ponting won the toss and elected to bowl first on a flat track because Nagpur is usually a good ground to chase on in the second innings as England proved against the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Netherlands-c753 when they achieved a huge target of 292 runs without much difficulty.
The comeback of Shaun Tait and Brett Lee has added a lot of fire-power in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746’s bowling, which has been under heavy criticism in the recent past.
On top of that, Mitchell Johnson seems to have found rhythm at the right time and all three of them make Australia’s bowling extremely formidable even on the flat tracks of the Subcontinent. That’s what Johnson and Tait proved today as they took four and
three wickets respectively.
Johnson was named as the man of the match for his match-winning effort. While talking about his role in the team, Johnson said during the presentation ceremony that, "Happy with the way it came out. Important game for us to go out there and perform, it was
great. I have bowled first change for a while, I guess that's my role. If I get a chance to open the bowling, I'll put my hand up, but we have a fine attack with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Lee-c72382 and Tait at the top. I still remain aggressive and go for wickets, I am enjoying this role.
Will like to bat lower down and smack a few as well".
Another positive for the Kangaroos was the fact that the top order showed some good form as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Watson-c96326 and Haddin scored 133 runs for the first wicket partnership. The first 15 overs of an ODI innings are always crucial in the Subcontinent and the Australian
team looks to be in great shape even though they lost both their warm up matches against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757.
The situation for the Black Caps would have been much worse as they had lost their six top order batsmen for only 73 runs on the board. However, the late order showed some resistance and took their team to a respectable total of 206 runs before they were
bowled out in the 46th over of the innings.
Nathan McCullum and Daniel Vettori proved once again how crucial they are if New Zealand is to do well in the mega event. Unless or until the top order fires, late order batsmen cannot make much of a difference. The onus would be on the likes of McCullum,
Guptill, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Taylor-c92915 and Ryder to help the Kiwis post big scores in the tournament.
The Kiwi bowling was quite mediocre and failed to trouble the Aussie batsmen throughout the innings. All three wickets that fell in the Australian innings were more of a case of batsmen losing their wickets rather than the bowlers taking them.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 would have to raise their game big time if they are to qualify for the ICC 2011 World Cup quarter-finals.
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