White guides Australia to series-clinching win
By Greg Buckle, 12 Mar 2010 Greg Buckle is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- Australia, Cameron White, Chappell-Hadlee series, Cricket, New Zealand
Ricky Ponting praised the leadership qualities of Cameron White after the pair scored half-centuries to guide Australia to a series-clinching win in the fourth one-day international against New Zealand on Thursday.
The victory at Auckland’s Eden Park gives Australia a three-one lead in the five-match series and means the tourists retain the Chappell Hadlee Trophy ahead of game five in Wellington on Saturday.
Chasing 200 to win off 34 overs in a rain-interrupted match, Australia scored 4-202 with 17 balls to spare.
Man-of-the-match White’s 50 came from 57 deliveries while skipper Ponting was in blazing form with 50 off 35 balls before he was leg-before to spinner Daniel Vettori (2-29).
“The way White played in particular was a very sensible, very mature sort of innings,” Ponting said.
“It was a good run chase in the end, we did it pretty comfortably.”
Australia were looking a little vulnerable at 4-150 but White and Mike Hussey (28 not out from 17 balls) added 52 to pace Australia’s comfortable victory.
“It’s the first one I’ve won I think. I’ve been involved in a couple of losing series over here so it’s very nice to win this, it’s a very nice feeling,” said White, a veteran of Australia’s 0-3 series defeat in New Zealand in 2007.
Shane Watson (32) and Ponting shared an 82-run partnership for the second wicket after Brad Haddin fell to Shane Bond for a duck.
Vettori trapped Watson and Ponting in front as Australia lost 2-1 in 12 deliveries to bring the crowd of 11,265 to their feet.
Adam Voges, who replaced Michael Clarke in the side for the past two games after the vice-captain quit the one-day series for personal reasons, made 34.
Clarke, whose shock exit back to Sydney earlier this week came amid a nude-photo scandal involving his fiancee and model Lara Bingle, is expected back in Wellington in a few days’ time to prepare for next week’s first Test.
Ponting said he felt the drama of the week had tested the mettle of his side.
“It probably just puts a little bit more back onto me I guess. I’m lucky in the side as well that I’ve got guys like Mike Hussey and Cameron White who have good cricket brains,” Ponting said.
“I can bounce things off them when needed.
“Although you lose your vice-captain, I’ve still got plenty of other experienced guys around.
“Little things like that quite often I’d like to think bring good teams closer.
“Michael being out, Adam Voges coming in, it presented a great opportunity for him and the other guys stepped up a little bit.”
Ponting said pace bowler Ryan Harris (1-37) was in doubt for Saturday’s dead-rubber fifth game in Wellington with a toe injury, giving an opportunity for Clint McKay to play his first game of the series.
Spinner Nathan Hauritz (3-46) led a strong all-round performance from Australia’s bowling attack to dismiss New Zealand for 238.
Shane Watson, James Hopes and the in-form Mitchell Johnson claimed two wickets each to keep the pressure on the Black Caps who were bowled out in 44.1 overs.
Brendon McCullum top-scored for the Kiwis with 61.
Tailender Daryl Tuffey was the next-highest scorer with 34.
“Most of the dismissals were relatively soft,” Vettori said.
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Jameswm said | March 12th 2010 @ 9:41am | Report comment
Australia were pretty dominant, but I thought Duckworth and Lewis played very well for the Kiwis.
Something has to be done about that.
Where are our friends from across the ditch? Mind you, there are no Aussies commenting either!
Brett McKay said | March 12th 2010 @ 9:54am | Report comment
James, a couple of mates an I were trying to work out how D/L came to a figure of 200 off 34 this morning, and this led us to finding the ICC D/L method and formulae, and putting Excel to use. Except that it took a turn for the confusing at this point. I’ll just post my email reply:
I’ve done the calcs for last night … using this [ICC D/L] method. But using the method and doing the calcs, I’ve got last night’s revised target being 194, and not 200 as is being reported, and as Australia chased.
If the number of overs left was 36, I can get the target to 201, but I can’t actually see how they got a revised total of 200 from 34 overs. There must be a newer calculation table in play…
The ICC D/L method can be found at http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net/rules_and_regulations.php, for those who want to do their head in….
Jameswm said | March 12th 2010 @ 11:02am | Report comment
It badly favours the team batting first when the overs are cut. I mean, 16 overs lost, and only 38 runs cut? Sure, maybe the runs shouldn’t be cut by the run rate (4.7), but by half of it?
We were on track to score well over 300 too – shame we didn’t bat first! NZ seem to struggle with that though.
Amazing though that we won so easily despite the tough revised target.
I’d bring Warner in to open and put Haddin back to 7, and drop Hopes. I’d have Hopes in the squad though – he’s a handy contributor and scores pretty quickly. That does make your bowling a bit skinny though.
Brett McKay said | March 12th 2010 @ 11:18am | Report comment
on the surface, that’s how it appears but it’s not quite the case. If you get into the detail and the formulae, it actually makes some sense, eventually. I knew I should have paid more attention in algebra at school!! You have to remember, Australia still had ten wickets to use in those 34 overs, so their high percentage of “resources” (wickets in hand, and overs left) meant the score doesn’t reduce by as much as if they were say 2 or 3 down when the rain came.
Ponting’s worked out NZ aren’t too confortable chasing (and has won four tosses on the trot), and in the last three games they’ve not been able to recover from losing wickets in a group. The Australians have bowled particularly well too, and so they deserve a fair bit of credit for adapting their template (ie. bat first) game plan to suit the type of game NZ don’t want to play…
JohnB said | March 12th 2010 @ 4:01pm | Report comment
A slip of the keyboard I’m sure Brett, but the revised target would have been more, not less, if the rain delay came a few overs into the Australian innings and they’d lost a couple of wickets already before the delay (as happened to the Kiwis earlier in the series. Strangely Daniel Vettori didn’t seem compelled to express his bemusement with the revision this time).
Have to say 200 off 34 didn’t seem totally unreasonable to me. After all, starting out with 10 wickets on a small ground, you’d expect 150 plus in a 20/20 game.
Jameswm said | March 12th 2010 @ 11:49am | Report comment
By the way – I’ve been meaning to say, that the Kiwi commentators are offensively biased. They complain incessantly if a decision goes against them, and criticise the umpires without restraint regularly.
Do they realise Aussies are getting the coverage, as they urge the Kiwi players on?
sledgeross said | March 12th 2010 @ 11:59am | Report comment
To be fair James, I reckon alot of the bias is tongue in cheek. My problem is that Ian Smith notwithstanding, they all sound the bloody same!
Jameswm said | March 12th 2010 @ 3:23pm | Report comment
Nah – not what I was hearing. The ump originally gave something wides when it had just flicked a pad, and the commentator said “NO!, you’ve got to be kidding” in a very strained and worried high-pitched voice. Then he went on and on about it. They commentated as if they had a few similarly one-eyed mates with them, not as if it was going to a bi-partisan audience.