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January 30, 2007 (Link to Scorecard)

The Black Caps are starting to get their cricket under a control as they posted a commanding total on the board. They could successfully defend their impressive 318 for 7 at the WACA in the 9th game of the ongoing Commonwealth Bank Series. It was another Jacob Oram special today and he indeed is charged up ever since he read the lines in an Aussie paper saying that he was a poor man's Chris Cairns. Oram followed the quickest ODI hundred ever made by a Kiwi with a sensational 54 in 33 balls that had powered Kiwis to a formidable total. England in their chase lost too many wickets and were out of the game soon. It was only a late revival that had cut short the margin of defeat and with that the bonus point was saved.

Lou Vincent was the Man of the Match for today's game. Vincent, who was the replacement of Nathan Astle mid way in this tournament had laid the foundation early on with a 111-ball 76 which had 11 fours. Young Ross Taylor continued to announce his arrival in the international circuit with a similar score, to be precise 71 which had come in 81 balls with 7 fours and a six. The Kiwis had lost two wickets at the top which also included their skipper Stephen Fleming's. The Vincent-Taylor partnership of 137 runs had laid the platform for the Jacob Oram onslaught towards the end. New Zealand had smashed an incredible 65 runs in the last five overs as a result of Oram's presence. England's bowlers contributed 37 free runs in the form of extras which also included 22 wides!

The 34-year-old Mal Loye began the English chase in style by bending on one knee and hoiking Mr.Bond out of the mid wicket region for a six. But that was all Loye would get in his brief stay in the middle, he was the first casualty driving Franklin into the slips. Ian Bell scored a well paced 31 but that wasn't going to be anything significant for a team chasing a 300 plus target. Ed Joyce, the left handed opening bat scored 66 while the other batsmen couldn't kick on to score the necessary solid scores. England lost its key wickets which included Collingwood and Flintoff at the wrong time and the match was as good over at 162 for 6 in the 36th over. Veteran wicket keeper, Paul Nixon came up with his career best of 49 and Liam Plunkett got an unbeaten 25 to follow up to his 3/54 with the ball early on. His partnership with Nixon, worth 76 runs had helped England to reach 260 for 8 in the 50 overs, which saw the margin of defeat to 58 runs. For the Kiwis, Daniel Vettori with figures of 2/40 in 10 overs was instrumental in keeping the run rate under a check.

 

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