Monday, March 29, 2010

A peculiar Aussie reply

On the 2nd day's play between Australia and New Zealand, no matter if New Zealand put up a total of 264 on the board which was more than the total of 231 put up by the Aussies on the 1st day's play. This can in no ways trouble the Aussies. All that the New Zealand could achieve was a 33 run lead in the first innings. In case New Zealand had to take a lead, be it by any amount of runs, for that the Aussies should display an under - power performance which would in turn allow the opposition to capitalize. And this is what New Zealand did.

It is just a matter of time before the Aussies get back strongly at the opposition and this time as well the situation is no different. At the end of the day's play, the Aussies were 35 runs on the board without any loss of wickets and furthermore, the Aussies had a lead of 2 runs which, though not much at the moment, with three full days being available, the Aussies can make it count for which its history itself is an example. May be at the end of the 5th day, New Zealand could take home only the satisfaction that they had a first innings lead and nothing more.

If one side of the coin suggests New Zealand taking an upperhand after they took a lead of 33 runs as mentioned, the other side of the coin also suggests that the Kiwis lost all their ten wickets almost a session before the second day's play got over. So, it would not be wrong to say that New Zealand had got hardly anything to take away from the match. Highlights from the scorecard suggests that if not for Ross Taylor, no other Kiwi batsmen really stood to the Aussie challenge whatsoever. If there was Ross Taylor who notched up a hundred for his team, there was also Mitchell Johnson who bagged 4 wickets for Australia.

And, Ross Taylor didn't achieve this without the aid of some sloppy fielding from the Aussies who dropped him when the batsman was on 7, 53 and 92. However, some majestic knocks from Ross Taylor were witnessed when the batsman scored 25 runs from Nathan Hauritz over which included three consecutive maximums. By the time New Zealand crossed a total of 231 put up by Australia, they had lost 6 wickets meaning the remaining 4 5 batsmen from New Zealand could manage just 71 runs, with Taylor's score being 41 out of that. So, by hooks or crooks, Kiwis took a temporary edge over Aussies.

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