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Kiwis edge Zimbabwe in a thriller

If the Wills International Knockout Tournament needed some hype to bring the audiences into the seats or before their TV screens, it certainly got it with a humdinger of a curtain raiser, between Zimbabwe and New Zealand, on day one of the competition.

See the game in review, and the irony of it all strikes you -- one team outplayed the other over 95 overs, and lost it all in the last five overs of the match.

One captain -- Alistair Campbell -- played a brilliant knock, kickstarting his team's innings and then throttling back to anchor the effort and help Zimbabwe put up an eminently defensible total. The other skipper, Stephen Fleming, struggled for touch right through, got runs at a pace slow enough to raise fears that his presence at the crease would turn the game against his own side. And yet, it was Fleming, not Campbell, who in the end took the winner's cheque, and the man of the match trophy to boot.

Talking of that award, I would think the adjudicators muffed it big time. Chris Harris, in tandem with Daniel Vettori, was responsible for choking Zimbabwe in the middle overs, he then came back with New Zealand completely out of the game and swung it back in his team's favour with one of the most spectacular cameos in recent memory, finished it all off with a clean hit for four off the last ball when his team needed three runs to win -- so what more does a guy have to do to get some recognition around here anyway?

The full transcript of the commentary is being appended, therefore we won't go into the detailed wicket by wicket report. Instead, what follows are the broad brushstrokes of the game, as it unfolded.

The nature of the pitch has been the subject of much speculation. If this first game is an indication, the tracks are going to be on the slow side, getting slower as the match progresses. There is turn, but it is on the slow side again, giving the batsmen plenty of time to cover for it. What is difficult, though, is slam bang run-making -- the side that runs its singles well and, in its turn in the field, restricts the flow of singles, is always liable to be the one with the winning chance.

The Zimbabwe innings began with flair, despite the loss in the second over of Grant Flower. Alistair Campbell came out in aggressive mood, and his blistering strokeplay on both sides of the wicket was responsible for Zimbabwe rocketing along at 42/1 in 5, 68/1 in 10 and 93/3 in 15.

Sharing that responsibility was some thoughtless bowling by Doull and Allott, both of whom strayed off the true too often to give the fielding skipper a chance to set a run-restricting field. It was Daniel Vettori in harness with Chris Harris who showed how to bowl on this track, keeping it tight on a line of off and thereabouts, with a predominent offside field. With Campbell and Andy Flower finding runs hard to come by, they were forced to concentrate on batting through, and Zimbabwe in the middle overs had a bit of a crawl, going from 107/3 in 20 through 121/3 in 25 to 135/3 in 30.

Campbell by then had settled into the anchor role, obviously concentrating on batting through. Flower, thus, after a quiet start, decided that he had to be the one to chance his arm, and stepped up a few gears to up his strike rate close to the cent per cent mark, and power Zimbabwe along to 169/3 in 35, and 195/3 in 40. Even at 227/4 in 45 -- Flower leaving at this stage in an attempt to accelerate further -- Zimbabwe looked to have it well in control, but then gave it away during the end overs with some wayward batting, failing to take advantage of the six wickets they had in hand.

One portion of the responsibility for this has to be borne by Campbell. He had been batting right from the first over, his eye was well set, and once Flower went, he had to be the one to really make the push and ensure that the last five overs yielded the maximum. However, the proximity of his century saw the Zimbabwe captain working the singles around -- fair enough in the middle overs, but not quite on at the death with 6 wickets in hand. And when he finally got to his 100 and looked to cut loose, he only managed to lose his wicket to a wild heave.

Zimbabwe finished on 259 -- a defensible score on this track, but given that they were 195/3 in 40, they appeared to have lost the plot in the slog, scoring a mere 64 in 10 overs though, going into the death, they had seven wickets standing.

For New Zealand, it was really Vettori and Harris who pulled the game back with a superb spell in the middle overs, debutant Tait and Nathan Astle providing them good support where their opening bowlers proved a let down. And to cap it off, the normally razor sharp Kiwi fielding was on the slack side on the day.

The New Zealand reply proved to be the exact opposite of the Zimbabwe innings. Streak brought all his experience into play in a superbly controlled opening spell, Neil Johnson backed him up to the hilt giving just around 17 runs in his first six, the fielding was electric in its intensity and the Kiwis, as a result, crawled.

The progression tells the tale, really: 15/1 in 5, 30/1 in 10, 52/2 in 15. Another statistic, indicative of the quality of the Zimbabwe bowling and fielding during this stage, was that where the Kiwis managed their first four in the 12th over, Zimbabwe clouted as many as 9 fours and a six in the first 15.

Even after the field restrictions were off, Campbell kept his men right up, in a tight, run denying circle -- and Paul Strang and Andy Whittall, taking over from the pacemen, kept up the good work. The Kiwis went thus: 73/2 in 20, 94/3 in 25, 113/3 in 30, 138/3 in 35, 175/3 in 40, 209/3 in 45.

Adam Parore and Stephen Fleming batted out this phase. Fleming, who reportedly is coming off an illness, was nowhere near his best touch, and had obviously decided to settle down to playing the anchor. The trouble for the Kiwis was that Parore, too, appeared to have the same intention -- thus, where for Zimbabwe Andy Flower had done the acceleration while Campbell anchored, here we had two players both pusing singles around when the need was for the odd risk-taking.

50 clear runs to get, off the last five overs, and it seemed a cakewalk for Zimbabwe. More so when the well set batsmen, Parore and Fleming, left in quick succession.

But that cleared the stage for Harris, and he proved to be a performer par excellence. 18 runs came off Johnson in the 48th over, the bowler undoing all the good work he had done in the beginning by pitching too short and giving Harris room to throw his bat around. And that over finally gave the Kiwis a look-in, into a game they seemed to have lost.

Campbell must be probably wondering what he could have done better -- the answer to that, in retrospect, could be rotation of bowlers. Streak, even when Harris was going hell for leather, was impressive in his control and economy, and arguably the best bet to bowl the final over. But as it turned out, Streak bowled a tight penultimate one, but Johnson, the more inexperienced of the duo, had to do the death scene.

Inexperience showed in the no ball he started the 50th over with, in the short balls he gave both Tait and Harris, and climaxed in one woefully short that Harris, needing just three off the last ball, stepped to leg to club through covers for the winning boundary. Contrast that with Streak's previous over, where he bowled full to the point of overpitching rather than drop them short.

Olonga, too, faulted by bowling too fast and straying in line, when the need was for him to bowl full and on the stumps. Singles were never going to do it for the Kiwis, they needed fours and first Olonga, then Johnson, answered their prayers.

At the very end, the pleasure of watching a thrilling inaugural game though was spoilt just a fraction by the disappointment that Harris did not get the recognition that was his due.

The umpiring, by Peter Willey and Steve Bucknor, was of a uniformly high standard, with one aberration. Craig McMillan was given out caught behind by Bucknor, but when the slow motion camera and freeze frame technology came into play, it looked as though the ball just may have missed the edge. Not a blatant error, merely an avoidable blemish.

And so it's on to game two, England versus Australia.

Meanwhile, a note in passing. The commentary transcripts are being appended on the sports homepage. However, a technology glitch has made them come out upside down. Not a major problem, all you need to do for now is go to the bottom of the page and read up, and we promise to have it corrected and coming out the right way round by Monday.

Meanwhile, our next coverage is the game tomorrow, kicking off at 1.30 pm IST, see you then.

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