Sports After Dark

Australia vs New Zealand 4 Preview

Posted by Hamish McBrearty on February 4th, 2007

Shortly Australia play New Zealand in their final game of Commonwealth Bank Series before the finals. Australia have already qualified for the final series, while New Zealand need at least one more victory to secure their place. After England’s shock victory over the Australians on Friday night, the Kiwis and English find themselves tied on 9 points in the three team series. A New Zealand victory tonight is no guarantee of a finals place however, with England able to qualify under certain circumstances.

Tonight’s match comes from the majestic Melbourne Cricket Ground, site of the series opener and traditionally a fantastic one day batting ground. Its long boundaries are difficult to defend and should prove a challenge for big hitters such as New Zealand’s Jacob Oram to clear.

Ricky Ponting returns to the Australian team today in place of the injured Andrew Symonds, while Scott Styris makes his long awaited return to the New Zealand side. With both teams batting line ups striking excellent form towards the end of this series this match could well be decided by the bowlers. Both teams have gone for a fast bowling based attack with New Zealand bringing in Mark Gillespie for Jeetan Patel, and Australia continuing their rotation of bowlers dropping Glen McGrath and Nathan Bracken for Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee.

New Zealand have won the toss and elected to bat first, which has been their pattern this summer. Having finally solved their opening partnership woes with the addition of Lou Vincent the Kiwis will be looking to make a total of around 280 to defend later tonight. The New Zealand batting line up has begun to come into form in the latter part of this series with Ross Taylor, Jacob Oram and Brendan McCullum all making big scores.

The Australian team has been in magnificent form all summer but appear to have gotten speed woobles of late. When their loss to England on Friday is combined with their narrow victory over New Zealand the last time the teams met, there are danger signs for the Australians. Their last few games have been meaningless, having qualified for the final some time age, can Australia pick themselves up mentally for the finals series?

Teams

New Zealand