As Kane Williamson’s career has grown in stature over the past 12 months, he has established himself not just as a consistent batsman, but a cool head and a man for a crisis.
He had to be all of those things yesterday as he struggled to hold together a decaying New Zealand innings and lead his team to a one-wicket win over Australia in a thrilling clash between the Cricket World Cup cohosts.
Williamson came to the wicket as first drop when New Zealand were in a commanding position of 40-1, chasing Australia’s inadequate total of 151. He watched Brendon McCullum hit 50 to boost the run-chase before New Zealand’s innings fell into a steady and worrying decline.
Photo: Reuters
They slipped to 79-4 in the face of the first of two match-changing onslaughts from the Australia left-armer Mitchell Starc, and after Williamson had put on 52 for the fifth wicket with Corey Anderson (26), he saw the innings fall into a steeper and more worrying collapse.
New Zealand slumped from 131-5 to 146-9, six runs from victory, as Starc took three wickets for four runs in his last three overs. Luke Ronchi fell for 6 and Daniel Vettori for 2, depriving New Zealand of its last two players with a claim to batsmanship, then Williamson saw Adam Milne and Tim Southee fall for ducks to consecutive deliveries.
That brought to the wicket the last man, Trent Boult, who already provided yeoman service to his team by taking career-best figures of 5-27 — five wickets for three runs in his final spell — to lead the destruction of the Australia innings.
Photo: AFP
Williamson decided that not much could be asked of Boult with the bat and desperate times called for desperate measures. He urged Boult to fend off as best he could the last two balls of the over he had to face, then made up his mind to settle the issue in one blow.
Williamson stepped away from his stumps to free his arms and hit the first ball of the next over, bowled by Pat Cummins, over the long-on fence for six. With that shot the game was won and New Zealand preserved their unbeaten record in Pool A.
“I was looking to hit a boundary, ideally a six,” Williamson said. “After what Starc did at the other end, for the new batsman coming in it was obviously quite tough so trying to get a boundary away was the plan.”
Australia captain Michael Clarke disputed claims that he made a tactical blunder in his use of the bowlers during the closing stages of the game.
Australia were fighting its way back into the match when Clarke removed Mitchell Starc from the attack and brought in Mitchell Johnson.
New Zealand were on the back foot at the time of the change, but Anderson hit Johnson’s first three balls for two fours and a six to alleviate the pressure.
Starc returned and took another three wickets in his second spell, prompting questions as to whether Australia would have won had Starc bowled through.
“It’s pretty tough to bowl a 10-over spell,” Clarke said. “So it was more to give Mitch [Starc] two overs off. He was bowling beautifully, and I knew we could find another way to get a breakthrough.”
“I thought Mitch would have a huge opportunity to try to go through the tail as he just about did. Good decision?” he added.
However, Clarke described the batting performance as “extremely poor,” not taking much succor from a spirited performance by the bowlers to almost snatch a remarkable victory.
“[New Zealand] swung the ball nicely and bowled good areas, but our shot selection was very poor, and our defense more than anything else was an area that was a lot poorer than we would have liked,” Clarke said.
INDIA, UAE
Reuters, PERTH, Australia
Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin claimed four wickets to lead a strong India bowling performance as the defending champions eased to a nine-wicket victory over the United Arab Emirates in a Cricket World Cup Pool B encounter in Perth.
Left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja and fast bowler Umesh Yadav chipped in with two wickets apiece as the UAE were bundled out for just 102 in 31.3 overs at the WACA to post the lowest score of this year’s tournament.
Opener Rohit Sharma used the opportunity to get some runs under his belt as his team chased down the target with 31.1 overs to spare for a third triumph in as many matches.
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