Cricket: Vettori left lamenting lost chances

Daniel Vettori. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

Much like a year ago in Australia, New Zealand cricket captain Daniel Vettori has been left ruing what might have been.

His team sauntered off Westpac Stadium with a much-needed spring in their boots after recovering from three consecutive losses to defeat Australia by 51 runs on Saturday after a slick bowling and fielding performance before a crowd of 11,587.

It wrapped up another gripping five-match Chappell-Hadlee one-day series with Australia the victors 3-2, a third consecutive transtasman contest where the world champions departed with the trophy.

Last summer New Zealand led 2-0, then at 2-2 were poised to snatch the trophy in game five before rain stymied them in Brisbane; this time the wheels fell off in Auckland after a stirring victory in the series opener in Napier.

"If we reflect back on games, particularly the first game in Auckland, where we bowled so well to restrict them to 275 and then fell over at the end, I think that's the game that's really going to haunt us," Vettori said.

"But there were some really pleasing things, even taking two games off Australia, not a lot of teams have done that lately. I suppose it's a good feeling to know it's an opportunity missed."

Vettori said confidence would be taken forward to Friday's two-test series opener at the Basin Reserve in Wellington, along with encouragement looking further afield to the World Cup next February.

The ODI series outcome was a fair result for the world No 1 against world No 4.

Batting was New Zealand's Achilles heel, with only Scott Styris (49.75) and Ross Taylor (44.25) averaging over 35 compared with five Australians: Cameron White (56), Mike Hussey (49.50), Mitchell Johnson (43), Brad Haddin (38.40) and Shane Watson (38.40).

Taylor's 70 in Napier and Vettori's 70 in Auckland were New Zealand's highest of the series as big scores were sadly lacking.

Saturday night epitomised the impressive bowling efforts, and highlighted the pain for New Zealand that Shane Bond is slipping away to the Indian Premier League tomorrow, having retired from test cricket.

Bond's searing bouncers removed Haddin and Ricky Ponting in consecutive balls, the latter albeit to a shocker from home umpire Gary Baxter.

Tim Southee recovered from his Auckland horror show (0-55 off 5.1) to chime in with four for 36 last night in an impressive tune-up for the test series where he'll combine with Chris Martin and Daryl Tuffey.

"I couldn't really ask for too much more from the bowling and fielding side of things, we've still got a lot of work to do with the bat," Vettori said.

Ponting refused to whinge about the umpiring dramas, which also cost Adam Voges his wicket when Asad Rauf detected a non-existent edge.

He gave it the "that's cricket" line and praised New Zealand's bowling as their best of the series. And his own bowling spearhead Mitchell Johnson, who responded to crowd taunts to take 12 wickets at 18.33, was a clear series standout.

"He's bowled as well in this series as I think I've seen him bowl. His execution and his skills are just spot on," Ponting said.

- NZPA