INDOOR
CRICKET WORLD
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World Cup 2002
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RESULTS |
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GAME 17 MEN NEW ZEALAND vs AUSTRALIA Result (Teams mentioned in the order they batted):
The much anticipated match between the top two sides of the Men's competition is finally here. As the ladder stands at the moment, New Zealand are on top with 22 points, Australia on 21. Next is Sri Lanka on 15, England on 5 and India on 1. Other than pride, this game has a lot at stake. The loser will have to play the 3rd place team (almost certainly Sri Lanka) for the right to play the winner of this game for a place in the Grand Final. The winner of this game can sit back and have a good rest before playing for the right to play in the Grand Final. The crowd has been steadily building up since 6pm local time, and 15 minutes before the scheduled start the grandstands are nearly full. Australia won the toss and decided to bat. And it's standing room only.
Australia opened with Johnson and Raverty. They batted very solidly, losing only the one wicket (runout) in the second over. As their innings went on, the huge crowd seemed to grow silent. New Zealand crowds do need to learn to keep up the noise throughout, not just when a wicket falls. In fact, their team probably needs the support more when the wickets aren't falling. The Australian openers therefore managed to silence the crowd fairly effectively by not losing wickets, and came out with the score on 31. It was just the start Australia wanted.
Jay Otto and Craig Slocombe batted second. They were in trouble immediately, losing 2 wickets in their first over (both bowled). This set the crowd alight, and the pressure was noticeably increased on the Australian pair. They lost a further 3 wickets in their second over (bowled, caught and runout), and one in their third (third-ball). After 3 overs their partnership stood at -4. They rallied for their fourth over, taking 9 from it. Their partnership realised only 5 runs, and New Zealand and the crowd were lifting. Australia were 36 after 8 overs, a good return for New Zealand's efforts in the field. Then Mills and Butler entered the court. Despite a large number of balls not scored from (15 in all), this pair did not lose a wicket. They scored modestly ( 8, 5, 7, 9 ) for a steadying partnership of 29. Australia were now 65 from 12 overs.
Gardiner and Corey Otto finished the innings for Australia. They lost a wicket on the last ball of their first over ( bowled ), but didn't lose another until the second-last over of the innings (runout). In the meantime they had added 39. In the end their partnership was an impressive 36, and Australia had recovered well to a score of 101. New Zealand openers Robbie and Mark Orchard batted through some good bowling, losing only the one wicket (runout) on the third ball of the first over. Although they had faced 2 third-ball situations, they had scored 21 from 3 overs. One over to go, and still 10 runs to tie the skin. Jay Otto bowled the fourth over, and despite having the batsmen on another third-ball, the New Zealanders took 10 runs from the over to tie the skin.
That meant that the winner of the next skin would also win the first and tied skin. With Australia's second pair only scoring 5, New Zealand were in with a big chance. More importantly though, their second pair had to consolidate on the openers' great start. Mark Calkin and Graham Murray batted second for New Zealand. Facing Corey Otto in their first over, they survived 2 third-balls for a score of 5. They then scored 11 and 7 off the next 2 overs. Mills for Australia gained 2 wickets in his over (the 8th over of the innings) for -5 off the over, but the New Zealanders had achieved a partnership of 18 for a total score of 49 after 8 overs. That left 53 runs required from 8 overs, or just under a run a ball. Brendon Donkers and Guy Coleman batted third, and they too faced Corey Otto in their first over. The Australian bowling and fielding seemed to lift for this pair, and it lifted further with each wicket. With one wicket (bowled), they scored zero from the over. Two runouts in the next over also allowed the New Zealanders only zero from the over. Keeping up the pressure, the Australians again took two wickets in the third over of the partnership (runout, stumped), from which the New Zealanders scored just 1 run. Jay Otto bowled their last over, and a runout and a third-ball wicket saw them score -7 from the over. With that partnership achieving only -6, the New Zealanders had slumped to 43 from 12 overs. That left the last pair of Iain O'Brian and Gareth Irwin the mammoth task of scoring 59 runs to win. A stumping and a runout in the 13th over put paid to New Zealand's chances. The following over cost 2 runs as there was another catch. O' Brian then gave the large crowd a display of aggressive hitting, smacking Slocombe for a 7 and a 5 off successive balls faced. A wide and two no-balls also helped, and the New Zealand pair took a massive 22 from the over. But it was too late, and the Australians finished the game off with a runout in the last, restricting New Zealand to 69.
A high
quality game, played in front of a crowd of over 1,000 people, had come
to an end. Although disappointed, the New Zealand fans saw their team
display their high-level skills against a very skilled opponent. This
result should in no way deter fans from coming to watch these teams
play again--they really are a lot closer than tonight's score might
indicate to some. And once again we apologise for not being able to
get this result up on the site as soon as we would have liked, but the
server problems occured in the UK, so they were a bit out of our control.
We hope these late results and report go some way toward making up for
the delay.
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