By RICHARD BOOCK
PERTH - New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has taken the extraordinary step of admitting he threw the game against South Africa on Friday night in order to improve his team's chances of qualifying for the tri-series final.
Having found themselves in a position in which a heavy defeat was their best chance of staying in the tournament, the New Zealanders conceded the game by a 67-run margin and presented South Africa with an all-important bonus point.
The result meant the South Africans cemented their place in the best-of-three finals - the first of which will be played at the McG on Wednesday night - and also meant certain elimination for Australia if they could not score a similarly emphatic win against Shaun Pollock's men last night.
The bonus point system had been introduced in an attempt to find qualifiers in an ODI tournament after Australia manipulated the run-rate equation at the 1999 World Cup.
The ability to fix run-rates remains a possibility in next year's World Cup in South Africa and, if adopted, the bonus points system is set to provide a second underhand option for struggling contenders.
Chasing 271 in their last preliminary game of the tournament, New Zealand appeared to go after the runs during the first half of the innings, but throttled back noticeably in the latter stages and ended with Adam Parore and Daniel Vettori playing defensively.
New Zealand's only genuine chance of winning seemed to rest with Craig McMillan, who went at better than a run-a-ball while adding 57 for the fifth wicket with Scott Styris. But when he was brilliantly caught by Gary Kirsten at third man for 46, and was immediately followed by Styris and Chris Harris, New Zealand's winning chance had all but evaporated.
Under instructions from Fleming to keep the total under 216 in order to deliberately concede the bonus point, the New Zealanders dawdled through the last 20 overs and eventually finished at 203 for eight.
"We had to look at pure survival in the competition," said Fleming.
"The way the bonus point system is structured, probably our best opportunity was to give away a bonus point, to give ourselves the best chance of reaching the final.
"Believe me, it was our last resort and the call from the middle and from myself that, in the end, that was out best chance."
The go-slow infuriated the 14,000-strong crowd, who booed and jeered the New Zealanders to the end, as Parore finished with an unbeaten 36 off 67 balls and Vettori with 20 not out off 29.
It also rekindled memories of the notorious underarm incident which occurred 21 years ago to the day, and is causing debate over the worth of the bonus point system.
Former international umpire and Australian Cricket Board chairman Col Egar said the more complicated the rules and format for the game, the more potential there was for matches to be manipulated.
"When I first heard it I thought, in one moment, that it sounded a lot like the underarm incident in 1981. This is quite similar. They have intentionally manipulated the table so I think the law should be thrown out.
"The more you introduce artificial rules to a competition, the more chance there is to have contrived, unusual or even silly results."
Fleming believes the bonus point rule should be discarded, admitting that he felt "empty" after exploiting the system to his team's advantage.
"We were extremely disappointed," he said.
"We'd exhausted all other avenues of getting through to the finals, but these are the rules and we're going to use them.
"I don't particularly like it, but if it gets you through to the finals and gives you a chance to win, then it's purely about us and our survival."
Pollock was not quite as adamant but still gave the format the thumbs down, saying: "You can understand what's behind it, but at the end of the day I think you should just reward teams for winning."
Ironically, the only voice to be heard calling for the bonus point to be retained was that of Australian captain Steve Waugh, whose team stood to suffer the most damage if Fleming's ploy worked overnight.
"I think you've got to have a look at the system for a year or so because there's different scenarios which pop up."
SMASHING OVERS
When Shaun Pollock, on Friday night, and Brett Lee last night, slammed 27 runs in an over off James Franklin and Allan Donald respectively they joined five combinations of batsmen in fourth equal spot for the most runs scored in an ODI over.
The record of 30 is held by Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya, who did it twice (off Pakistani Aamir Sohail at Singapore in 1995-96, and off Chris Harris in Sharjah in 2000-01) while Pakistani Shahid Afridi (off Jayasuriya at Nairobi in 1996-97) and India's Sachin Tendulkar (off Chris Drum at Hyderabad in 1999-2000) are second equal on 28.
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