Tri-Series 2007 Game 5: Hussey drags Australia over for 2 wicket win

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Australia staggered one step closer to their goal of an unbeaten summer as they defeated New Zealand by a mere 2 wickets in the 5th Tri-series.

New Zealand's innings began disastrously as Lee took early wickets in a fiery opening spell. You can tell the SCG is Glenn McGrath's home ground. The pitch featured a thin green strip directly on the right hander's corridor of uncertainty. This is bread and butter for Pigeon - he built a career around bowling in this area and ultimately took 3 for 24 off 10 overs.

Stephen Fleming came with the plan to attack Stuart Clark - it turned out to be ill conceived or poorly executed. Clark had Fleming out off his first ball and Taylor (who nevertheless continues to impress) shortly afterwards. Clark finished with impressive figures of 4 for 54.

New Zealand looked desperately vulnerable at 5 for 84 but Craig McMillan turned their innings around scoring 89 runs off 87 balls. He was unlucky to be given out too - caught off a stomach high full toss. I'm surprised the world's #1 ranked umpire Simon Taufel failed to call the no-ball - maybe his vision was obscured by McMillan's ample gut.

Still, McMillan can't complain - he was caught behind on 1, didn't walk and umpire Asad Rauf missed the nick. There were several poor umpire decisions throughout the match going both ways but in the end, it wasn't the umpire's mistakes that cost New Zealand the match.

Australia's innings began even worse than the Kiwis as Gilchrist, Hayden and Ponting fell cheaply, slumping to 3 for 17. Hayden's ODI comeback isn't quite working out and the selectors should think about experimenting with some other opening combinations. I'd love to see Mike Hussey open the batting with Gilly - Mr Cricket already fixed our broken Test middle-order. Maybe he can fix our broken ODI top order.

Symonds and Clarke built a partnership with Symonds striking some powerful boundaries. In particular, he targeted Vettori from his opening delivery but Vettori had the last laugh, bowling him for 38. That brought Clarke and Hussey together. There were two critical moments in the middle of Australia's innings. Clarke skied a ball to fine leg where James Franklin grassed a sitter. Then Hamish Marshall butchered a sitter of a run-out opportunity when Hussey and Clarke were stranded at one end. Marshall fumbled the ball, backhanded it along the ground to Vettori who fumbled it while Hussey was still out of his ground.

Australia had a similar critical moment on Friday night when Hussey was given not out. Both times, we took full advantage and went on to win the match.

However, Australia still continued to stutter towards the finish line. Clarke skiied another one which this time Taylor caught (barely). Cameron White again fell cheaply and Hamish Marshall took a great catch to dismiss Brett Lee (if only he'd fielded so well on the Hussey run out). But it was Mr Cricket once again dragging us over the line and hitting the winning runs with a magnificent six. Hussey is a class act.

So Australia scraped home, even closer than Friday's match. But the last two matches have shown they aren't bullet proof - the batting is looking particularly vulnerable at the moment. But the opposition need to eliminate their errors before they can beat us.

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Posted by JC on Sun 21 Jan

10 comments

We're playing mediocre cricket against very mediocre opposition at the moment; shouldn't be seen as nearly good enough for a successful World Cup defence.

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Posted by Dan Tas on 2007-01-21 22:33:15

I think Australia's bowling well but the batting is very dodgy at the moment.

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Posted by JC on 2007-01-21 22:43:52

Different match. Same headlines.

Newspapers give sports journos the day off and reprint Friday's articles, changing the names of the opposition.

Wonder what odds I'd get on the headline "Hussey saves Australia" appearing at least once more this series? Probably not worth betting on.

No surprise to me the Aussies are having a mid-tournament slump. All except Mr Cricket, who spent the break between innings in the nets on Friday, and probably did tonight, too. No amount of cricket is too much for him.

Thankfully.

PS. JC I've been reading your cricket blog lately, and it's more professional than most paid journos IMO.

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Posted by Lliam on 2007-01-22 00:35:41

Lliam, thanks for the kind comments although my headline punning and fancy metaphors aren't anywhere near the level of professional journos. I don't spend as much time as I would like blogging (but more time than I should). But I'm just happy to get to talk about cricket and read the thoughts of other cricket fans - it's particularly interesting getting perspectives from other countries.

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Posted by JC on 2007-01-22 00:54:38

BTW, forgot to mention my favourite moment of the game. It was the second last over of the match. McMillan had just got Bracken out, the batsmen changed ends so Hussey faced the last ball of the over with 2 to win. McMillan bowled a bouncer, Hussey hooked and missed, the keeper went up for a caught behind appeal. McMillan screamed an appeal, was turned down. By this time, he was practically nose to nose with Hussey - he turned to him and if my lip reading is correct asked "hit it?" I like the cut of McMillan's jib, a chubby character with chutzpah. A professional journo would describe him as "pugnacious" (PC term for pudgy).

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Posted by JC on 2007-01-22 01:02:20

Dont know who the umpires would be for the rest of the series but if it's Asad Rauf, then you can be sure he would provide the Aussies with much tougher competition than both the Poms and the Kiwis put together.

I have just followed the India-SA series thoroughly and the man was a disaster. He seems like a good bloke, just maybe not ready for the international level.

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Posted by jethro on 2007-01-22 03:11:16

Are there any other cricket lovers in Singapore? We need to protest en masse. I turned my TV set on and clicked on the cricket channel on Sunday afternoon only to find a live feed to the West Indies -- India game. Admittedly Dravid was at his best but come on! No live feed on the best ODI team in the world? What a joke!

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Posted by TA on 2007-01-22 12:11:20

Hussey has saved Australia too many times so far this summer.

Don't get me wrong, I like winning and I'm not complaining. But what if he pulls a hammy??

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Posted by Timbo on 2007-01-22 13:39:38

I think a couple of the aussie batsmen might be a bit tired and an ODI series is not quite enough to motivate them to give there usual 110%. But they're still winning because the bowling attack continues to do such a good job! and ofcourse because Mike Hussey continues to be invincible :-)

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Posted by Chris on 2007-01-22 14:20:07

The batsmen are tired and the bowlers are carrying the team? Usually it's the other way around. I'm not sure why the matches have all been so low-scoring lately - it seems the curators have been delivering flat pitches for the Tests and bowler friendly pitches for the one dayers. Weird.

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Posted by JC on 2007-01-22 15:53:48

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