da bet7： Daryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills took four important wickets but left a lot to be desired with their consistency
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan09-Nov-2003After all the whining about inconsistent conditions, Stephen Fleming wonthe toss and chose to bowl on a very overcast morning. There was a huge chanceto extract revenge for the Faridabad disaster, where Nathan Bracken and BradWilliams had torn New Zealand apart.Daryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills took four importantwickets, but their consistency left a lot to be desired. Their length washighly erratic and on a pitch that begged for discipline, they could haveeasily run through the batting order. They bowled six short balls and five half-volleys, which got hit for 35 runs. Even in the other 75 balls that they bowled,there were many drifting down the leg when they should have been probing on offand middle. Compare this to the Faridabad match – where New Zealand were bundledout for 98 – when Bracken and Williams completely avoided the short ones andconceded only five runs when they erred with their length. New Zealand todayAustralia at FaridabadHalf Volley 5 15 6 5 Good Length 75 33 83 23 Short 6 20 0 0 After 20 overs Australiawere 102 for 4 and conditions were getting better for batting. Ricky Ponting and Michael Bevanwere laying a strong foundation and one would have expected the typicalAustralian urgency for singles and twos in the middle overs. But both withdrewinto their shell, and the runscoring was drastically curtailed. Between the 21st andthe 40th overs there were only 74 runs scored, with 96 dot-balls. Thateffectively makes 16 maiden overs out of 25 and even Bevan did not wantto force the issue. But like all champion teams, the Aussies compensated towards theend, when they hammered 66 off the last 10 overs and set New Zealand acompetitive total – which turned out to be a matchwinning one. First 15 16 – 40 41 -50 Runs scored off bat 68 74 66 Dot balls 66 96 24