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Day
5
Day 5 (
26th October ) - first round. Posted 11:27pm Perth Time (GMT+08:00hrs)
In the battle for second place, New Zealand has the better remaining
draw by far--they face England (whom they've beaten both times
they've met) and South Africa (whom they've beaten one out of
two meetings). England on the other hand face New Zealand (whom
they've not beaten) and Australia (whom they've not beaten).
South Africa's chances of moving up the ladder are described in
Day 4's notes.
Australia will top the table after today's last non-finals games.
....... we struggle to know what to call the pre-finals games:
"Qualifying games" isn't correct because all four teams
qualfied for the finals by showing up. Perhaps "pre-finals"
games is as descriptive and accurate as we're going to get.
Results:
New Zealand
102 ( 2 skins )
defeated England 85 ( 2 skins )
Australia153 ( 3 skins ) defeated South Africa 39 ( 1 skin
)
Another hard-fought game between England and New Zealand. Needing
only 19 runs to win, New Zealand's last pair didn't get those
19 runs until well into the fifteenth over--they had to overcome
a great welcoming over from Mike Barnatt (minus one) before settling
down and scoring 13, 11 and 11 runs off the last three overs.
South Africa could only manage 39 runs against a very smooth Australian
team. So dominant were the Australians in this game that every
batting partnership bar one (the last) scored more than South
Africa's team total, with the second pair of Glenn (Cass) Cassels
and Paul Lahey scoring a fine 52. No doubt a game South Africa
would not like to dwell on ... so we won't.
Day five
( 26th October ) - second round.
For England to force New Zealand out of second spot, they would
have to beat Australia and take all skins, and South Africa would
have to beat New Zealand (and take all skins). We think it's safe
to predict that the final standings before the finals will be
Australia first, New Zealand second, England third and South Africa
fourth.
And so it was . . . . .
Results:
Australia 137 ( 4 skins ) defeated England 13 ( no skins
)
New Zealand 149 ( 4 skins ) defeated South Africa 88 (
no skins )
Comprehensive victories by the teams who finished the pre-finals
games in first and second place.
England copped what was close to Australia's best bowling and
fielding display so far. Unlike some days previous, the Australians
today weren't going to be caught napping for a second. And they
weren't: England's highest partnership was 13, Australia's lowest
was 28. England finish third, Australia first.
South Africa scored 88 runs, and it was always going to be a difficult
task defending that score against New Zealand. And so it proved
to be: after only 8 overs, New Zealand had scored 80 runs, thanks
to a hard-hitting 52 from Colin Taylor and Barry Dickey. New Zealand's
last pair also had a chance of a 50 partnership, needing 5 runs
off the last ball . . . . instead of which a catch was hit, giving
them a partnership of 40.
NEw Zealand finish second overall, South Africa fourth.
For
those of you who've not been able to make the trip
to Perth, each results page will have a little photo
showing you a bit of our city and surrounds
---
okay, so this one's an outrageous cliche, but we do have 'em
and my daughter loves them, and she suggested
putting this photograph here ---
Table
after Day 5
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