Johnson demolish New Zealand as Australia win by seven wickets by CricketArchive staff reporter

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Ground:	Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur
Scorecard:	Australia v New Zealand
Player:	NL McCullum, DL Vettori, MG Johnson, SW Tait, SR Watson, BJ Haddin
Event:	ICC World Cup 2010/11

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DateLine: 27th February 2011

 

Australia and New Zealand were supposed to face some stiff challenge after their easy opening encounters but what followed after the toss was forgettable. Barring some adventurous and aggressive shots from Brendon McCullum at the top of the order and sensible batting from Nathan McCulllum down the order there was no real contest. Mitchell Johnson and the other Australian pacers never allowed New Zealand batsmen to put up any challenge as they demolished e brittle Kiwi batting line-up with a furious bowling performance.

 

Ponting after winning the toss elected to field first as he believed that his pacers had the ammunition in them to wreak the Kiwi batting line-up. For the first few overs the Kiwi batsmen looked like they could weather the Australian storm but once Brendon McCullum fell to an injudicious shot things went haywire. The wickets fell like a pack of cards and at the end of 17th over the score read 73 for 6.

 

Jamie How and Nathan McCullum tried to ressurect the innings with before the former fell to Smith leg before. Nathan McCullum was joined by Vettori at the crease and the duo brought some respectability to the score. New Zealand finally scored 206 in 45.1 overs which was poor to say the least in perfect batting conditions.

 

The Australian openers led by the brutal Watson and adventurous Haddin flayed the Kiwi bowler around with disdain. Runs came at a fast clip and soon the pair posted 100 runs for the first wicket. There was all possibility that it could have being a 10 wicket win for the Australians before Bennett removed both the openers in a single over.

 

Clarke and White then ensured that there was no late drama as they took Australia to a comfortable seven wicket win.