Cricket: Australia crushes Black Caps to stay alive in Twenty20 series

Australia played their way back to the Twenty20 series with blazing bats, rhythm like fire, and a dime spin, just a shame no one was there to see it.

The visitors won by a landslide 64 runs as the series progressed to its level 2 blocking phase. There was something else missing from New Zealand’s performance that could also be attributed to illness: a sixth bowling option.

Mitchell Santner was ruled out after feeling bad and isolated, leaving Kane Williamson with five bowlers. It proved a costly absence, with Australia’s out of shape captain Aaron Finch (69) and Glenn Maxwell (70) feasting on the predictable attack.

By contrast, by the time Australia had passed its first 10 overs, seven bowlers had been used.

Australia’s 208-4 was always going to be a tough question, even tougher when New Zealand hitters discovered they would face serious heat.

Riley Meredith, a 24-year-old Tasmanian, was playing his first T20I, it won’t be his last.

It didn’t take long for the pace to rise to over 150 km / h and it was too much for Tim Seifert, whose normal 2021 continued. He now has three one-figure scores in three games against Australia.

The former is always special, but in this case the latter was better, catching Captain Williamson as he crawled to try and whip him over the midwicket.

Should have done three too, when Marcus Stoinis dropped an easy chance for Devon Conway to take cover.

For a brief moment, Martin Guptill (43) and Conway (38) seemed capable of accomplishing something a bit special, but when the latter stepped into the deep square, the crowd, if there had been one, might have been forgiven for going to drifting towards the exits.

His was the middle wicket on a notable Ashton Agar (6-30) who saw three wickets and two runs.

The teams now head to… Wellington again, with momentum seemingly in Australia’s favor after a solid finish to a losing cause at Dunedin and a comfortable victory here. They would do well to remember how quickly things can change.

Ask the boss.

Finch got the lucky lottery ticket. The first ball hit an ecstatic Tim Southee on the pads, all showing off the lift foul on referee Chris Gaffaney’s arm. He addressed the television referee and duly showed that the ball was hitting the stump of his leg, but one millimeter within the parameters of the “referee’s call.”

Matthew Wade didn’t last long, knocking Trent Boult through the blankets before hitting Guptill on the first slip.

One could argue that it should have been a goalie catch, but Seifert was pinned to the spot, just as he was early in Josh Philippe’s innings when he skied from one man to a third man who barely left the 30-meter circle. . Instead, he left it for Boult, who never had a chance.

That fault was from Kyle Jamieson, who could really use a push from his field. The way things stood he made the balls fall between the frame and deep men, dropped into cover, the inner edges squirting past the stumps, the outer edges meeting the limit, the kind of misfortune you get When you’ve got seven games in a T20I career, they’ve taken only four wickets and gone through about 10 for more.

Philippe’s luck could not last. He finally got enough on one of his outfield chip shots to find Guptill’s hands, but the 83-run partnership gave Australia a platform for all-out attack.

They accepted the invitation, and Finch and Maxwell spent a lot of time hitting backwards, or change, whatever you want to call it.

When Finch left, Maxwell feasted on ordinary bowling pins. James Neesham has never been a top-of-the-line bowling option and was possibly as surprised as anyone when asked to throw in his full quota. It was a disastrous decision.

Maxwell’s eyes lit up as the hapless Neesham found the center of his bat with astonishing precision: 28 runs later, Williamson was able to remove his hands in front of his eyes (and wondered why he didn’t flip the arm sliders left by Mark Chapman). ).

Neesham’s horrific 0-60 comeback is the second most expensive in New Zealand T20I history (and the only thing that could make his night worse happened, when he was looking for a first-ball duck).

New Zealand was desperately losing its T20I midway at Santner and it showed.

They still lead the series 2-1, but need to find some cheap and quick overs.