Entry 261, on 2005-12-09 at 14:52:07 (Rating 1, Comments)
New Zealand recently lost a game of one day cricket against its old rival (and generally considered the best team ever in world cricket), Australia. The fact that New Zealand lost a game isn't unusual - we are going through a bit of a bad patch of form at the moment - but the game itself was exceptional.
Many people, who don't understand the game, think that cricket is rather boring, but a game like this one might change their mind. One day games, where the result hangs in the balance to the very end, can be incredibly exciting - one of the commentators noted that he was worried about the effect of the game on people with heart problems!
So Australia scored an impressive total of 322, including a huge score of 156 by Symonds (that's considerably more than the whole New Zealand team got in the last game). Not many people would have given New Zealand much of a chance of beating that total, but they started well with Lou Vincent thrashing the ball around, and scoring 71. Then Cairns added 60, and the total looked in danger.
In the last 10 overs it could have gone any way, and finally in the last over it should have been New Zealand's game. But two run-outs, including one as a result of some brilliant Aussie fielding, meant New Zealand was just pulled up short by 2 runs.
This really showed the potential of one day cricket to produce exciting games with the outcome unknown until the last minute, and the team favoured to win changing as the various dramas unfolded on the field. This was definitely one of the best one-dayers for a while. Pity about the result!
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