Record win lifts NZ cricket from doldrums

It summed up New Zealand's cricketing year that one of their greatest one-day victories couldn't quite stop more questions than answers hovering overhead.

But the world record run chase against Australia at Jade Stadium on December 10 at least gave Black Caps followers a tasty morsel to accompany their Christmas turkey after a year of something akin to indigestion.

The cold facts of 2005 showed New Zealand won just five of their 17 one-day internationals and three of their seven tests -- two of them gimmes against a second-rate Zimbabwe side.

It was also tough going off the field as New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Martin Snedden came under heavy political pressure to cancel the Zimbabwe tour, while the Boxing Day tsunami cut short Sri Lanka's New Year tour and played a part in NZC declaring a $6.15 million net deficit for 2004-05.

The high point was the gripping pursuit of 332 for their solitary win from eight one-dayers against the world champions in 2005; while other memorable moments were the August tri-series final victory over India in Harare and the April test series win over Sri Lanka on the back of Lou Vincent's magnificent 224 in Wellington.

But little more than a year out from the next World Cup in the Caribbean, inconsistency in the one-day game and drop-off in the team's big strength -- fielding -- gave coach John Bracewell plenty to mull over ahead of the Sri Lanka and West Indies tours here in the New Year.

In November, New Zealand's world one-day ranking dipped to seventh after the 0-4 series loss in South Africa -- less than a year since the Black Caps were rated the world's second-best one-day side thanks to an unprecedented 10-match winning streak in 2004.

Ricky Ponting's world champion Australians were New Zealand's most frequent sparring partners in 2005. They brutally exposed the gulf between the sides on the February-March tour but offered hope in December that they weren't invincible.

With Brett Lee breathing fire, topping 160km/h in Napier and sending a stunned Michael Papps to hospital in Auckland, Australia won the February one-day series 5-0.

Then in the tests it was the Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath show, McGrath taking 18 series wickets and Warne 17 in the 2-0 series win which should have been 3-0 but for the Wellington rain. Wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist scored centuries in Christchurch and Wellington to average a staggering 171.5 for the series.

When Australia returned eight months later for the Chappell-Hadlee series there was no McGrath or Warne, key speedster Shane Bond was primed for a return from back problems and there was some New Zealand optimism.

But things went downhill when Bond suffered a hamstring strain the day before the series opener in Auckland. Lee caused mayhem with three for five in a blistering six-over spell which saw New Zealand shot out for 105.

Four days later Andrew Symonds slayed 156 to see Australia rack up 322, but Vincent, Chris Cairns, Brendon McCullum and Jacob Oram got them within six runs with an over left, before two run outs left them an agonising two runs short of a famous win.

With the series gone but trans-Tasman pride at stake, captain Stephen Fleming returned for the third match as the super sub. A patchy year for New Zealand's highest paid player had worsened with a scare which saw a benign tumour cut from his jaw.

New Zealand stared at another series clean sweep defeat, chasing 332 in Christchurch. No team had ever chased down such a target in 30 years of one-day internationals.

But a dream batting pitch, short boundaries and an Australian attack without Lee saw McCullum finish the hero with a whirlwind 50 not out after man of the match Scott Styris' century and another crucial cameo from Oram.

Stand-in captain Daniel Vettori, who nudged the winning run with an over to spare, rated it the most important of New Zealand's wins over Australia as it revived their self-belief which had taken a hit in 2005.

The top-order batting, death bowling and fielding remained atop the Christmas "must do better" list.

The cricketing year began on a sad note as the tsunami tragedy in Sri Lanka saw the shattered touring side depart for home after the first one-dayer in Auckland on Boxing Day.

Their star Muttiah Muralitharan returned for a World 11 captained by Warne in January, the hastily arranged team which earned thousands of dollars for the victims but proved no match for New Zealand in the three one-dayers.

Sri Lanka returned for two tests in April but were, not surprisingly, underprepared.

Slingy fast bowler Lasith Malinga had New Zealand scrambling for a draw in the first test Napier before a six-wicket haul from Chris Martin and Vincent's double-century saw them close out the series in Wellington.

Politics dominated much of the next few months as the Zimbabwe tour was debated in the face of President Robert Mugabe's human rights abuses.

Ill-informed politicians from both sides of the house missed the point that NZC had long since agreed to the International Cricket Council's future tours programme -- a binding contract which carried financial penalties of tens of millions of dollars, international cricket isolation and would end New Zealand's chances of hosting a World Cup.

Snedden stood firm, and a rare bright spot of the tour was to see Bond back and causing mayhem after two years in the international wilderness with back stress fractures.

Bowling at pace with sharp inswing, Bond took 11 wickets at 8.63 in the one-day series including a New Zealand record six for 19 against India, and in the tests 13 wickets at 9.23.

Vettori -- New Zealand's player of the year -- spun a web around Zimbabwe's batsmen with 11 wickets at 13.72 as both tests were won by an innings inside five days of playing time.

In the one-dayer in Bulawayo, Vincent slayed a New Zealand record 172 against Zimbabwe before they won the tri-series final against India by six wickets in Harare, Nathan Astle's 15th one-day century guiding them home.

Zimbabwe's return tour scheduled for December was canned by the New Zealand Government who vowed it would refuse to issue them visas in response to Mugabe's regime.

Star allrounder Cairns was controversially dropped for fitness reasons for the short tour of South Africa. The result -- a 0-4 one-day series loss with one washout which saw their world ranking plummet.

In domestic cricket, the premier titles headed north with Auckland beating Wellington by seven wickets in the five-day State Championship final and Northern Districts beating Central Districts by 20 runs in the one-day State Shield final.

- NZPA