New Zealand completed their rout of Bangladesh on the third morning of the second cricket Test in Wellington yesterday with a substantial innings victory to clinch the series 2-0.
However, the outcome was more a reflection of Bangladesh's inadequacies rather than New Zealand building confidently towards their series against England, which starts next month.
Bangladesh started the third day at 51 for five and the Test ended just before lunch at 113 for nine with the injured Tamim Iqbal not batting, giving New Zealand the win by an innings and 137 runs.
"The fact we've been able to dominate Bangladesh has been good but I don't think we'll get too carried away with the way we've played," said 108-Test veteran Stephen Fleming, who again fell short of a century on 87.
"All I know is our skill level has to improve. If we're going to compete we have to be more skilled across the board. The nature of some of the outs was sloppy, mine included," he said.
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori was also at a loss to explain the batting shortcomings where New Zealand failed to reach 400 in two completed innings in the series.
"Why can't we bat long periods of time? It's a hard one to answer," Vettori said. "We all know we have to get better at it."
Yesterday only the final wicket pairing of Shakib Al Hasan and Mushrafe Mortaza offered any substantial resistance, putting on 30 runs before a diving catch by Kyle Mills at point gave Jacob Oram the wicket of Mortaza for six.
Shakib Al Hasan was left unbeaten on 41, the highest score by a Bangladeshi batsman in the Test.
Man-of-the-match Chris Martin, who took five wickets in the first innings, was again the pick of the New Zealand bowlers with two for 35, while Mills, Oram and O'Brien also took two wickets apiece.
O'Brien could have enjoyed a much better return had he not had four chances dropped off his bowling, all by Matthew Bell in the slips.
Bell's bout of butterfingers was part of a general malaise which saw the Test descend at times to the mediocre, with New Zealand also failing to impress with the bat.
The hosts started day two at 134 for three with the intention of batting through the day's quota of 90 overs.
Instead, by stumps they had been dismissed for 393 and had struggling Bangladesh five down and still 199 runs in arrears in their second innings.
Daniel Vettori (94) and Fleming failed to make centuries despite strong starts, while the next biggest contributor to the New Zealand total was extras at 51.
Fleming, who has 43 Test 50s but only nine centuries, had set himself a target of 136 to boost his average of 40 -- the benchmark for an international batsman.
Brendon McCullum (40) and Mathew Sinclair (47) both fell with the half-century milestone in sight.
Sinclair, whose place in the New Zealand team to play England is by no means secure, was the beneficiary of three dropped catches -- including one in which Tamim broke his thumb.
Vettori and Fleming also benefited from sloppy fielding as Bangladesh put down seven catchable chances.
"This series has expressed the void there is between the sides, between the top four or five sides and Bangladesh," defeated coach Jamie Siddons said.
New Zealand took the series 2-0 after winning the first Test in Dunedin by nine wickets, also inside three days, and now have a 6-0 record against Bangladesh.
New Zealand host England in February-March.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier