England won by 3 wickets with 1 ball remaining. They made hard work of that. England’s batsmen appeared to be half asleep as they chased New Zealand’s modest total of 205. Andrew Flintoff was named man of the match after scoring an unbeaten 72 off 75 balls.

Michael Vaughan’s injury during fielding troubled him enough to call for a runner during his innings. Although it appeared Vaughan was claiming a hamstring injury, it is fairly likely that once again he has injured his knee. If Vaughan has injured himself once again it make England’s batting woes even worse. Already without Kevin Pietersen, England can ill afford to lose another batsman, especially with their top order in its current form.

Throughout the middle overs England’s batsmen struggled to keep the score ticking along, scoring only 27 runs between overs 20 and 30. This was a combination of poor batting, accurate bowling and athletic fielding. In fact New Zealand’s fielding performance was excellent for most of the match, even with their best fielder Hamish Marshall carrying the drinks.

New Zealand’s bowling and fielding fell apart at the death with run outs missed and too many no-balls bowled. New Zealand had Flintoff caught at mid-wicket, but the delivery was ruled a no ball as it was a full toss above waist height. Mark Gillespie also squandered a chance for to run out Paul Nixon in the dying stages of the game.

In the end New Zealand simply didn’t have enough runs to defend. While the winning runs were hit of the penultimate ball, a further 20 runs would probably have been enough to win the game for the Black Caps.

This result leave Australia at the top of the table at 2-0, England at 1-1 and New Zealand at 0-2. The next match is in Brisbane between Australia and England this Friday. Brisbane is a traditionally hard and fast pitch which will suit the Australian fast bowlers.

As for me, I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on the series so far.

New Zealand scored 205/9 off their 50 overs with Nathan Astle top scoring with 45. All of the other New Zealand batsmen, except Ross Taylor, scored at least 10, but none more than 27. I followed the game on Cricinfo’s text commentary from work so haven’t actually seen any of the game. It would appear that once again none of the New Zealand batsmen were able to make a good score after getting a start.

205 simply isn’t enough on this wicket and I would expect the English batsmen to pick up the runs fairly easily. But then again, this is England and a spectacular collapse is always a chance. Also of note, Michael Vaughan appeared to injury his leg while fielding which may hinder him while batting.
My prediction: England by 4 wickets in 45 overs.

New Zealand have won the toss and elected to bat first. Cricinfo are reporting a stunning day weather wise and it’s the same pitch Australia scored 289 on two days ago. Looks like it’s going to be a great game.

Teams

New Zealand

1. Brendan McCullum
2. Nathan Astle
3. Stephen Fleming
4. Ross Taylor
5. Peter Fulton
6. Craig McMillan
7. Daniel Vettori
8. James Franklin
9. Shane Bond
10. Mark Gillespie
11. Jeetal Patel

England

1. Andrew Strauss
2. Michael Vaughan
3. Ian Bell
4. Paul Collingwood
5. Andrew Flintoff
6. Ed Joyce
7. Paul Nixon
8. Jamie Dairymple
9. Monty Panesar
10. Jon Lewis
11. James Anderson

Welcome to my new domain for hosting Sports After Dark!

It’s almost time for the battle for second place in the Commonwealth Bank Series to begin. Both New Zealand and England were soundly beaten by Australia in the first two games of the series and, realistically, are only battling for the runner up spot.

England will be without the services of their best one day batsman, Kevin Pietersen, for the remainder of the series which poses the question, can the brittle top order post a score worth chasing? New Zealand’s top order is woefully out of form with only Ross Taylor and Peter Fulton providing any real resistance in their first game.

In terms of bowling the edge has to go to New Zealand with 2 world class bowlers in their line up, Shane Bond and Daniel Vettori. The English attack will be looking to take early wickets and avoid a repeat of the disastrous first over by Flintoff.

Finally, someone tell Ross Taylor to keep his fluid intake up. I’ve seen him bat for a long time twice this summer and twice he’s cramped up badly. Drink lots Ross, it’ll help.

I’ll be back with the pre game post in about half an hour with the teams and the toss.

Australia win by 105 runs. Looks like I called this one almost exactly right. New Zealand got off to a bad start losing both opening batsmen very early one, at one stage 7/2. Astle looked badly out of form fishing for balls outside of stump before eventually edging one. In my opinion Brendan McCullum is wasted at the top of the order, he is a far more useful player coming in at 6 or 7 and steering the team home at the death.

Ross Taylor and Stephen Fleming steadied the ship with Taylor looking especially classy proving his 128 against Sri Lanka was no fluke on his way to 84. Other than Fleming and Taylor, the only other batsman to put up any resistance was Peter Fulton who made 37.

The bowling honours were evenly shared by the Australians with Ben Hilfenhaus taking his first ODI wicket in front of his home crowd, trapping Brendan McCullum leg before.

This match really showed how much better than everyone else Australia is. Having watched their opening two games I would be very surprised to see them lose a 50 over match in this series. The only chance England and New Zealand have would be to be given a favourable target by the Duckworth Lewis method in a rain shortened game.

On Tuesday we will get an idea of who is playing for second in this series as England take on New Zealand in Hobart. I’ll be providing a sort of “meta-coverage” from work. Should be an intersting excercise. See you Tuesday.

Australia finished the innings at 289/8 with some superb hitting from Andrew Symonds and Cameron White as well as a hat-trick from Shane Bond. After an excellent start from Gilchrist and Hayden the Australians were slowed a little by the loss of 3 quick wickets. Symonds and Clarke consolidated well through the middle overs before the big hitting at the death. Bond slowed the hitting by dismissing White and Symonds on consecutive deliveries, then completed his hat-trick by bowling Nathan Bracken.

While 289 is a sizable total, New Zealand could get it if they bat well. As noted earlier the New Zealand top order is badly out of form and 5.80 per over is a daunting task. My prediction, Australia by 100 runs.

Australia have won the toss and chosen to bat first on a hard dry pitch in Hobart. The pitch will be fast and true with good bounce. Might make things difficult for the New Zealand slow bowlers, Vettori and Patel. Australia have left out Glenn McGrath for debutant Ben Hilfenhaus, much to the relief of the New Zealand top order.

Teams

Australia

1. Adam Gilchrist
2. Matthew Hayden
3. Ricky Ponting
4.  Michael Clarke
5. Andrew Symonds
6. Michael Hussey
7. Cameron White
8. Nathan Bracken
9. Mitchell Johnson
10. Ben Hilfenhaus
11. Stuart Clark

New Zealand

1. Brendan McCullum
2. Nathan Astle
3. Steven Fleming
4. Ross Taylor
5. Peter Fulton
6. Craig McMillan
7. Daniel Vettori
8. James Franklin
9. Shane Bond
10. Mark Gillespie
11. Jeetan Patel

Today the second game of the Commonwealth Bank Series will be played in Hobart between Australia and New Zealand. Two rival nations who love to defeat each other.

Australia are coming off their 5-0 whitewash of England in the Ashes series as well as easy victories in the Twenty20 International and the first game of the Commonwealth Bank Series. New Zealand batted and bowled well in their series against Sri Lanka, just never in the same game.

The New Zealand bowling attack is inexperienced at this level due to injuries to front line bowlers Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills. However strike bowler Shand Bond will be in the team. Bond always seems to save his best for Australia and in particular Ricky Ponting. Bond has dismissed Ponting 6 out of the last 7 times the two have met.

New Zealand’s batting line up looks good on paper but is filled with batsmen out of form and lacking game time. Steven Flemming only played 1 game against Sri Lanka where he failed to score, Nathan Astle and Brendan McCullum looked good but failed to make big scores.

Australia have been in magnificent form in all forms of the game winning the ICC Champions Trophy last year and dominating the Ashes. Judging by England’s performance on Friday it would appear only New Zealand have any chance of beating them in the CB series, however given the Aussies’ dominant form a defeat seems unlikely.

I’ll be back with the teams and the result of the toss in about 20 minutes.

I’ve got to say first of all, I didn’t watch the end of the Australian innings for a couple of reasons. One, the game was effectively over after about 20 overs, and two I live in New Zealand and wasn’t going to stay up til after 11pm watching a game whose result was beyond doubt.

For those of you don’t know the result, Australia won by 8 wickets with just over 4 overs remaining. It took them a little longer than I expected but as I said in an earlier post, England simply didn’t have enough runs.

Once again England’s bowling was terrible. Andrew Flintoff gave up 11 runs worth of wides off the first over which largely set the tone for the rest of the match. Paul Nixon had a very nervous start to his ODI career behind the stumps, fumbling balls and missing balls keepers at this level should never drop.

The story of the match, however, was the injury to Kevin Pietersen. Pietersen broke his rib after being hit by Glenn McGrath and will take no further part in the Commonwealth Bank Series, robbing England of their best one day batsman.  Pietersen looked in excellent form during his innings, top scoring for England. However without his aggressive batting style, England is lacking an extremely important factor in one day cricket. England’s top order now lacks a batsman who is able to hit out. Vaughan, Strauss and Bell are excellent batsmen but their natural game is to work the ball around, not to his sixes.

Australia’s easy victory over England last night has shown the England team is unlikely to get close to the Australia during the Commonwealth Bank Series. I will be looking forward to Sunday’s match against New Zealand from Hobart where we will find out if New Zealand can come close to Australia.

England 242/8

England batted very well with the stand out performer being Kevin Pietersen who scored 82 from 91 deliveries. Unfortunately for Pietersen he was hit by a Glenn McGrath ball that made him look genuinely uncomfortable for the rest of his innings. That one delivery could well have cost England any chance they had at winning the game. Had Pietersen gone on to get a century England would have most likely ended up with a score around 280, but once he got out wickets fell regularly and the English lost their way in the final few overs.

Most batsmen got a start but few went on with their innings. Andrew Flintoff scored 47 not out in rapid fire style towards the death but the regular loss of wickets limited his chances to score.

I noticed quite a few of the English batsmen walking around the crease line before the ball was bowled which struck me as very odd. Were they trying to put the bowler off? If they were the tactic certainly failed.

The only other talking point of note was that the Australians only received one home town decision when Dairymple was given out caught behind from a ball that clearly stuck his helmet. It neither looked nor sounded out, brought a very unconvincing appeal but was still given. Still, only one home town decision is a good result.

Australia begin their innings needing 243, or 4.86 runs per over. Well within their reach. As I stated earlier, England really came up 30 to 40 runs short of a defendable target.

My prediction: Australia win by 6 wickets in the 40th over.