Conway’s unbeaten 99 sets up big win for NZ
NEW ZEALAND VSAUSTRALIA
FIRST T20I
Christchurch, New Zealand -
New Zealand utterly humiliated Australia's BBL XI in the opening T20I on the tenth anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake, hammering the tourists by 53 runs at Hagley Oval on Monday, the biggest ever margin of victory for them over their rivals across the Tasman in the T20 format of the international game.
Devon Conway was calmness and poise personified to maintain his outstanding start to representing New Zealand, compiling an unbeaten 99 to lift his side to 184 for five after the Australians had made the swifter start to claim three wickets inside the first four overs.
Chasing at least 20 runs more than they should have been, Aaron Finch's team were never a chance after being left completely bereft by the swinging new ball in the hands of Tim Southee and Trent Boult.
Together, they reduced the Australians to 19 for four, leaving the wrist spinner Ish Sodhi with a mop-up operation that handed him his best figures in T20Is.
Sams, Richardson nail the powerplay
Fewer than 24 hours after emerging from two weeks of quarantine with limited training, the Australia pace attack might have been expected to start uncertainly and then build into their work. Instead, Daniel Sams and Jhye Richardson - in his first T20I since early 2019 - produced strong opening spells to put the hosts in early trouble.
With Adam Zampa handed the second over of the innings to keep New Zealand from getting consistent pace on the ball, Sams coaxed Martin Guptill into slicing behind point in the opening over of the series.
When Richardson angled and swung a yorker right into the base of Tim Seifert's off stump, and then Kane Williamson was pouched behind the stumps when trying to pull a ball from Sam that was tight to his body, the tourists appeared to have put together the sort of powerplay that would decide the contest.
Conway gem holds hosts together
Out of a tally of 34 for three from the opening six overs, Conway had already looked a class apart in fashioning 16 from 12 balls with a boundary and a six.
In terms of shot production, selection and concentration he was more than a match for an attack that was at the top end of BBL standard, and with help from Glenn Phillips, Jimmy Neesham and Mitchell Santner, Conway built stands worth 74 (50 balls), 47 (27) and finally 44 from 19 balls at the death. New Zealand's final 13 overs tallied 146, a superb recovery that Conway had helmed as though already a seasoned international performer. He resembled, among others, a latter-day Mike Hussey.
Southee, Boult swing through Australia
For a touring top order thinking mostly in terms of big hitting, the sight of Southee and Boult curling the ball around corners was about as foreign to their mindsets and techniques as Pete Sampras at Roland Garros.
It was not entirely surprising, if no less galling for Australia's planners, to see the touring top order fold with alarming speed. Finch, still out of sorts, sliced his first ball to gully; debutant Josh Philippe miscued a pull shot; Matthew Wade showed scant respect to Boult's away swing with predictable consequences, and Glenn Maxwell's flat feet left him virtually guaranteed to edge Southee into a well-stocked New Zealand slips cordon.
Mitchell Marsh and Marcus Stoinis tried to remember how best to leave the ball outside off stump, but at 19 for four, the remainder of the innings was more or less academic.
Sodhi finishes the tourists off
Sodhi entered the attack, after Marsh and Stoinis had made some semblance of a recovery via some loose stuff from Kyle Jamieson.
Gaining plenty of bounce and just enough turn with subtle variation, Sodhi was gifted his first wicket when Stoinis shovelled a short ball straight back to him. But the remainder of his spell was much too beguiling for an Australia lower order facing a required rate well above 11 per over and straining for the boundary: figures of four for 28 were a new international best, punctuated too by 13 dot balls. The final overs were those desultory passages of a contest long since decided in favour of New Zealand.