It has been a phenomenal Saturday for cricket fans, as Australia and New Zealand completely gave them a treat through a high-scoring nail-biter in the ICC World Cup. Despite the poor way Australia started the tournament, they have regained their form, and on the other hand, New Zealand, who are among the strong contenders to win this tournament, faced their second defeat of the tournament. However, despite the winning and losing causes, the match has indeed been great and uplifted the game of cricket.
Australia defeating New Zealand by 5 runs
Australia batted first and put up a mammoth score of 388 on the board. The main credit goes to the openers who started the flow of runs, David Warner, who scored a brilliant 81 of 65 balls, and Travis Head, who just returned from injury and scored a magnificent ton for his team. Credit also goes to the middle order, who built the innings for their team steadily, and then Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglish, and Pat Cummin’s innings helped the Aussies to reach this total.
However, New Zealand, coming to bat, stood strong, which generally doesn’t happen when the first half of the game sees so many runs scored. However, Devon Conway and Will Young gave New Zealand a decent start. With they getting out, Rachin and Daryl beautifully handled a business; while the latter one scored a half-century, the former one scored a brilliant hundred.
However, with Rachin Ravindra getting out, the game slowly started to fall into Australia’s pocket. Though James Neesham tried to fight for his country with his well-made half-century, his run out of the penultimate ball ensured Australia’s victory. In the last ball, the Kiwis needed 7 runs to win and 6 to tie, but Trent Boult wasn’t able to hit Mitchell Starc out of the park.
Australia going strong
As mentioned, Australia started their journey in this World Cup poorly but now they are doing extremely well. The batting, as well as the bowling department, is going strong, proving why they are multi-time World champions and are actually never out of the tournament. On the other hand, the loss for New Zealand isn’t a very costly one as they have already won multiple games, and their place at the points table is still very strong. They will need a few more matches to get to the knockouts and it is expected that the teams who are now at the top, including South Africa, India, New Zealand, and Australia, will eventually make it to the semis.
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