After a pause to catch their breath, Australia and New Zealand have begun to pick over the bones of Saturday’s thrilling World Cup match at Eden Park, eager to determine what it tells them about the teams and the tournament. Had New Zealand won emphatically, as it seemed they might do when it bowled out Australia for 151, it might have said it had usurped Australia as the tournament favourite. But the teams were shown to be so evenly matched, with both possessing outstanding swing attacks which meant one mis-hit made the difference, that the secrets the match holds may take time to unearth.
New Zealand coach Mike Hesson said, “I think there will be a lot of learnings from it.” One of the obvious conclusions is that batsmen from both sides aren’t entirely comfortable against top-class swing bowling, especially when that swing is achieved with ruthless accuracy and at speeds of more than 145kmh. Trent Boult took 5-27 for New Zealand delivering just that kind of assault, bowling three of his victims, while Mitchell Starc for Australia, bowling a few clicks faster, took 6-28.
“There was some high quality swing bowling,” Hesson said. “I think we saw once the lacquer came off the ball, the ball started to swing more which is probably a character trait of the Dukes ball rather than the white Kookaburra. “That’s unusual and that’s something that I guess two white balls can show that you can have bowler-dominated games as well.”
McCullum is ‘okay’
Hesson says an arm injury suffered by captain Brendon McCullum against Australia “looks okay” and he should be fit to play in New Zealand’s next match against Afghanistan.
He said, “it’s just deep bruising. It’s pretty swollen so we’ll try to get that swelling down first and we’ll make another assessment in a day or so but it looks okay.
“I’m not a doctor but all the information I get is that it will be fine.”