Plenty just enough for Black Caps
Australia take the second T20I to the second-to-last ball
New Zealand scored a lot of runs in their second T20I against Australia yesterday. It very nearly wasn’t enough.
With Australia needing 15 off the last over chasing a massive 220 to win and the destructive Marcus Stoinis and Daniel Sams at the crease, James Neesham had both dismissed caught on the boundary as the visitors came within five runs of pulling off a ridiculous win.
In front of a sold out, near delirious and well-lubricated crowd of students and locals alike at University Oval in Dunedin, Stoinis launched a six off the fourth ball leaving himself nine off two. The next one was in the slot but he just missed his mark, with Tim Southee settling under the sky high shot to send the crowd home happy regardless of what happened off the final ball.
How it got to that point was tricky to describe without moving into the realm of the surreal.
Cruising to victory with Australia 113-6 after 13 overs, New Zealand’s attack suffered a collective meltdown as Stoinis and Sams started in top gear and moved quickly to overdrive.
We’ve seen a version of this movie four years ago, when Stoinis took Australia from 67-6 in an ODI
at Eden Park to 280 all out chasing 289 with a staggering 146 not out.
He was close to the main act again yesterday, but bowed to another bighitting batsman with a point to prove.
Yes, Martin Guptill is back.
The 34-year-old opener used the occasion of the first T20I to be hosted at University Oval to announce that he’s far from a spent force in the most dynamic form of
the game.
Guptill scored 97 from just 50 balls in leading his team to 219. In doing so he struck eight sixes, taking him to 132 in T20IS, passing India’s Rohit Sharma (127).
He was just inches from bringing up his third T20I century, being caught on the long off boundary when attempting his ninth six.
After a lean summer that extended to his form for Auckland in the Super Smash, Guptill had seen his stock on the T20 circuit fall.
He came into this match with perhaps as much pressure on his white-ball status as there ever has been. What he delivered was a wideopen window to his immense talent.
The first ball from Sams was overpitched and punched through the covers for four. Nothing too special about that except it was exactly the sort of ball — right in the
Guptill wheelhouse — that he skewed straight into the hands of gully at Hagley Oval.
Instead this wee spark lit a fuse that ignited a series of lofted checkdrives that nobody plays with such restrained power as Guptill. Once he got a few of those away he extended the arms, akin to a golfer at the range going from hitting a bunch of punched wedges to pulling out the driver from the bag.
He reached 50 — his first at T20I level for 16 months — when New Zealand had 59 in total.
By then he had lost opening partner Tim Seifert but captain Kane Williamson was the perfect foil, feeding his partner the strike before calling on an eclectic range of shots himself as their partnership — already the most prolific historically for New Zealand in this format — passed 100.
It was finally ended at 131 in just 11.3 overs of work.
“It was nice to get a few runs but it was nicer to get another win and go 2-0 up,” Guptill said. “Things haven’t quite gone my way lately but it was nice to spend a bit of time in the middle.”
Williamson was in vintage form himself, mixing three sixes and two fours into a fine 53 from 35 balls.
Neesham only enhanced his reputation as a pinch hitter, being promoted to No 4 and smashing half a dozen sixes — three off the first three balls he faced — on his way to 45 off 16 balls.
He was the critical factor in New Zealand setting Australia an imposing target of 220, a figure not as imposing as it sounds given the oval’s postage-stamp size boundaries. — NZ Herald