Australia wins the first of the ODI series match against the NZ
NZ could only muster 267 runs in the end and Australia wins the first of the 3 match ODI series by 29 runs played at WACA, Perth. The normal pitch turned out to a hard one and good for batting in the end. NZ chase went through fine till about 40th over but once Cairns got out trying to up the run rate it was curtains for NZ not withstanding the cameo by Harris. Thanks to some inspired bowling changes by Ponting(i.e. myself using Shailesh's game tweak) NZ ran short of fuel in the last 10 overs. Warne, Symonds and Clarke kept it tight in the last few overs forcing the NZ batsmen to play false shots. NZ may have been a little disappointed in the end after having been in the driver's seat at the end of 40th over. Ponting was rightfully named the man of the match for his splendid 139 off 156 balls with 21 hits to the fence and one over it. Special mention has to be made about Nathan Astle who looked in great touch and smashed 77 runs of only 90 balls building little but considerable partnerships with the NZ top order.
We catch up with the losing captain first up with Tony Grieg in the post match presentation.
Tony Grieg : Good game but in the end one too many runs conceded.
Fleming : Absolutely, we thought anywhere around 270-280 could have been chased on this track but in the end we were chasing 20-30 runs more.
Tony Grieg : How hard was it to bowl in the morning as we saw the pitch had turned into a belter by the time you guys started the chase.
Fleming : I thought our bowlers did a fairly good job up until the 40 overs but in the end the stupendous effort from Ponting, a different Andy Symonds approach to the batting and in the end Clarke's cameo took the game away from us.
Tony Grieg : Tell us about your batting, you guys seemed to be on track towards an improbable win?
Fleming : We were not doing too badly and when Harry joined Cairnsy we thought if they both batted till the end we could have probably made it through. Aussies slower bowlers did pretty well in the last 10 overs and it was always catching up once Cairnsy got out trying to bolster the run rate.
Tony Grieg : Well we got to watch a very closely contested game in the end. Good luck with your next outing.
Tony Grieg speaks to the winning captain and the man of the match Ricky Ponting :
Tony Grieg : Great effort with the bat Ricky?
Ponting : Absolutely mate, coming back to score 300 runs after having been down 4/95 is indeed an excellent effort. Andy and Clarke batted very well in the end to take us to what was a winning total of 300.
Tony Grieg : What was the strip like, it seemed very easy when you were batting? (Smiles)
Ponting : It wasn't so easy but it's one of those days when everything seemed right with my batting. I picked the gaps pretty well and we knew we had to build partnerships to ensure we batted through the 50 overs.
Tony Grieg : Shane Warne seemed to have found his rhythm straight away coming back into this format of the game.
Ponting : He is a champion bowler and he showed again why he can make such difference to the team. He bowled in good areas and kept it tight enough to induce mistakes from the NZ batsmen.
Tony Grieg : Astle and later Harry might have given you a scare?
Ponting : It was excellent effort by both Astle and Harry but we knew one wicket either of Harry or Cairns will get us back into the game. Thanks to our bowlers in spite of finding it hard to bowl on this surface they did the job for us in the end.
Tony Grieg : Well played mate and good luck with the next game.
Score card attached.
. Did the guy in the crowd get 1000 dollars for catching that?
