A Good Day At the Office

We'll Take the Win

Yesterday the New Zealand cricket team did not just beat Australia, it  trounced Australia.  These things do not happen that often, so we thought we would take a moment to note it for posterity.  

The dumbed down NZ Herald tried to make out that the Aussie media were all over their team for its incompetence and damned NZ with faint praise.  In fact that was not the case.  Sure the Aussie scribes were sharply critical of their own team's performance, but they knew that "up" was "up" and opined accordingly.

Here is a smattering of the commentary:

The 159-run capitulation to a rampant Black Caps outfit on Wednesday may have come in the 50-over arena but it inspired little confidence for success in the upcoming Test series.

The heavy loss has put the one-day world champion's run of seven consecutive series victories in grave danger and again shone the spotlight on Australia's weakness against the swinging ball.  Smith disputed claims the ball was swinging, which means he is either in denial about Australia's problems or casts the collapse in an even darker light. . . .

The flat tracks of home must now seem a world away for Australia's batsmen, whose torrent of runs slowed to a trickle against a red-hot Kiwi pace attack.  Just as they did when they visited the same venue in the World Cup, Australia folded with the bat, dismissed for a paltry 148 after collapsing to 6-41 in nine dramatic overs. . . .

Worse still, the Black Caps were without gun paceman Tim Southee, who is on track to return for the Trans Tasman series.  There will also be concerns at why Australia's bowlers were unable to extract the same movement through the air as Trent Boult and Matt Henry. . . . There was no sign of the woe that was to befall Australia's innings while the Kiwis were at the crease, even taking into consideration their moderate last 20 overs.

Martin Guptill - a perennial Test underachiever but one-day dynamo - and Brendon McCullum made batting look ridiculously easy against the new ball.  McCullum smashed his way to 44, including a thunderous run of six, four, four, six against Hazlewood. Guptill spanked 90 off 76 balls, which was eight more than he scored in the entire three-Test series in November.[SMH.  Emphasis, ours]

News.com quoted the Australian capital, Steve Smith speaking respectfully about the NZ bowling attack.

 “We know that the two up front (Matt) Henry and (Trent) Boult are class bowlers and wicket-taking bowlers and we just didn’t adapt well enough today. We let them get on top of us. We probably went a little bit too hard at them and we didn’t have it in us tonight.  I’m not sure it’s technical. It’s just about backing your defence early, giving yourself a little bit longer out there to get used to the conditions.  Hopefully we can do that and adapt well in the next game.”