Brothers David and Mike Hussey batted nervelessly together at Adelaide Oval to take Australia to a six-wicket victory over New Zealand, levelling the Chappell-Hadlee series at 2-2 with one match to play.
Pursuing New Zealand’s not-quite-adequate 8-244, the Australians suffered early wobbles on Tuesday night, losing Michael Clarke (14) and Ricky Ponting (15) to poor shots.
Brad Haddin was then run out for 43 in a dreadful mix-up with David Hussey (79).
But the arrival of elder brother Mike (75no) at the crease appeared to calm down the younger Hussey, and their stand of 115 from 119 balls saw the target gobbled up with 10 balls to spare.
David Hussey’s late dismissal allowed Adelaide native Callum Ferguson (13no) to enjoy the experience of helping to gather the winning runs in front of an adoring crowd of 16,242.
Australia’s bowlers earlier applied themselves admirably to restrict New Zealand.
Batting first in ideal conditions after Daniel Vettori won the toss, the Kiwis muddled themselves by losing wickets whenever a decent partnership looked like developing, and among a handful of starts only Ross Taylor (76 from 71 balls) went on to a score of substance.
Wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum ignored the pain of his deeply bruised right shoulder to open the batting, but was restricted in his movement while compiling an uncharacteristically subdued 33 that did not feature a single boundary.
The home attack was almost uniformly sturdy, Mitchell Johnson (3-51) grabbing wickets with his pace and James Hopes (2-37) doing so with accuracy.
Vice captain Clarke (1-23) delivered eight tight overs, but Cameron White was harshly treated, smacked for 24 from two overs the day after admitting he needed to start well each time he took the ball to maintain confidence in his flat legspin.
Clarke and Haddin began in a similarly confident vein to what they had shown at the SCG on Sunday, before the first over from Iain O’Brien (2-54) drew an ambitious drive from Clarke and a catch to shortish cover.
Ricky Ponting could have been lbw or caught at slip in the space of his 15, and his attempted front foot pull shot at Tim Southee – skied to Martin Guptill on the offside – could only be described as ugly.
Uglier still was David Hussey’s misjudgment to run out Haddin.
Hussey turned blind then left his partner with nowhere to go once he realised Craig Cumming’s throw from the deep was too fast and flat to challenge.
Hussey showed more presence of mind afterwards, driving crisply and working the ball around until he was yorked by O’Brien with the win in full view.
The match was played under the cloud of the Victorian bushfire disaster, with both sides donning black armbands while a range of donations were made to the Bushfire Appeal.
By the close of the night an estimated $6.03 million had been raised from the match to aid relief and recovery efforts in Victoria, including $157,730 from spectators at the ground.
Ponting said it had been a satisfying victory given all that had gone on around the team, including plans to fly to Victoria on Wednesday to visit bushfire-affected areas.
“It was a good win for us with everything going on around Australia at the moment and Victoria in particular, and how much everyone in our team has sat back and thought about what is happening,” he said.
“To look up at the scoreboard and see some of the money raised today by the appeal was quite staggering.
“We got through that, we got our thought processes away from that and back onto playing good cricket and full credit to the guys – we had a hard-fought win.”
New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori said his side had been around 40 runs short of their ideal total with the bat.
“Most teams come to Adelaide and think about scoring something around there and unfortunately we just lost wickets at crucial times,” he said.
“We were 30 to 40 short in the end.”
Vettori sustained a slight hamstring twinge while chasing a ball in the outfield but said he would be fine for Brisbane.
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