Match Report - Australia vs New Zealand ODI, Adelaide 10/2/09

The Match report will be a section where I report on a match. That I've been too. Not too complex hey?

Today I saw Australia convincingly defeat NZ in the 4th Chappell-Hadlee game to lock the series at 2-2 heading into the decider on Friday. The highlights of the game were three great batting innings .First Ross Taylor (76 in better than even time) in the Kiwi's innings of 8/244 before Dave (79 at a strike rate of 82) and Mike (75 in better than even time) Hussey did the bulk of the chasing. Kyle Mills was the most impressive bowler in the match, proving impossible to get away and conceding only 30 runs from 9.2 overs.

NZ Innings:
An uncharacteristicly slow start from McCullum (playing despite his injuries) meant that the Kiwis struggled at around 3.5 runs an over for most of their innings. However, Ross Taylor opened up towards the end after the introduction of Cam White swayed the momentum away from the Aussies. White conceded 24 off 2 overs after strangly being brought on to help out Clarke as the 5th bowler (Clarke took 1/23 off 8 to have what someone looking at the scorecard at the end of the game would assume a best bowler performance). However, before White allowed the Kiwis the momentum, all of the 5 Aussie bowlers were going at less than 4 runs an over. The death bowliong was poor after this, allowing a defendable target when 210 was achievable for Australia. On the flip side, Taylor was very good, and Mills stayed with him in the death. Guptill and McCullum were servicable opening but were far too defensive.

Aussie Innings:
A slow start also for Australia, with Haddin and Clarke a makeshift opening combination again. Clarke fell reasonably quickly and Ponting followed with a slow, low scoring innings held tight by Mills. At this point, the game was slipping away from Australia. Dave Hussey had achieved only modest returns and some were questioning his position in the side. This would make or break his career as an international cricketer. Dave took it in his stride and, with some support from Haddin initially and his brother Mike compiled the perfect innings for the situation. He became bogged down just before reaching his half century but once this mark was achieved, he blasted out before missing a straight delivery from O'Brian. At this point, the result was really beyond reasonable doubt, with Ferguson joining Mike Hussey to finish off the chase.

Special Mention:
To the person in the crowd who brough in a blow up doll and hit it around the crowd like a beach ball.
To the person in the crowd who pretended to "have relations with" the blow up doll.
To the legend in the crowd who climbed up onto the bar underneath the Adelaide Oval scoreboard to retrieve a blow up animal and stayed up there for a good 10 minutes, infuriating police and being cheered by the crowd.
Not that I condone such behaviour, not at all .-)

Hopefully this is close to the first match report you can read on the net about this game!

The Game Plan - Adelaide Crows and Australian Cricket Team (against NZ)

The Game Plan will be a segment where I dissect/ridicule the game plan of a sports team.
First up, the 2009 model Adelaide Crows:

The plan, as seen in last night's game against the Indigenous All-Stars is to chip the ball around the side of the field, taking as many possessions as possible and hence, improving Neil Craig's Dream Team score. For Fuck's Sake, play a proper Centre Half Forward like Nick Gill at CHF and direct the play through there. The chipping style works straight into the hands of the new zoning style defence because they can set up perfectly while you dilly-dally around the wings. Robert Shirley is not a lead-up forward. The structure of the side looked much better back when we had Ian Perrie in that role (becuase it was the only thing he was good for). However the convincing loss was due to more than the game plan. The Adelaide players refused to go in and get the hard ball or lay tackles onm the opposition, Myke Cook being one of the few who had a red hot go. Kurt Tippet showed glimpses, but against defenders giving away 15cm he should be able to monster them.

The Australian Cricket team's game plan against NZ seems to assume that NZ are completely incompentent batsmen. They are mostly incompentent, but when you presume that 220 will be a winning score and are satified with 3.5 runs an over batting first, you won't win many games.