By Jamie Alter
Shrugging off the rustiness of two weeks without a completed match, Australia set themselves up for another World Cup win. The match as a contest was finished by the half-way mark when Australia, powered by fifties from Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey, racked up 324. There is simply no way Kenya are going to overhaul that target.
Published: Mar 13, 2011, 06:34 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 13, 2011, 06:34 PM (IST)
Michael Clarke missed out on a century
By Jamie Alter
Bengaluru: Mar 13, 2011
Shrugging off the rustiness of two weeks without a completed match, Australia set themselves up for another World Cup win. The match as a contest was finished by the half-way mark when Australia, powered by fifties from Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey, racked up 324. There is simply no way Kenya are going to overhaul that target.
Haddin led the surge after Shane Watson failed to cash in on a good batting deck, playing himself in while picking off the loose balls as Australia raised their fifty in the 12th over. With Ricky Ponting, who scratched his way to 36 before being adjudicated lbw by a referral, Haddin stitched together 89 for the second wicket. Haddin’s main mode of scoring was to make room and drive inside-out or dab behind point, and he thus collected 32 of his 65 runs square of the wicket.
Then, completely against the run of play, he attempted to loft Jimmy Kamande over mid-wicket and picked out the sweeper (127 for two). Ponting fell four runs later, and when Kamande bowled Cameron White for two, Australia were in a spot of bother.
Enter Hussey, who since his recall has spoken of how hard he’d been training, and Australia were put back on track. Hussey led the charge, with a cover-driven four, and then began hustling between the wickets. Clarke refused to be perturbed by the double-strike and the sharp spin that Kamande got, and relied on cuts and steers off the canny spinner. Hussey and Clarke proved adept at rotating the strike by stealing singles, and the pair’s get down-and-dirty approach ground the Kenyan fielders down. They dabbed, nudged, stroked and occasionally biffed their way to a 114-run partnership off 97 balls.
A flurry of strokes powered Australia to 200 off 36 overs, and two boundaries off the next over signalled the batsmen’s’ intentions. Hussey joined Clarke on fifty with two more boundaries but perished in the process of lifting the run rate. It was a valuable innings, however, and showed how valuable Hussey is to this team.
Clarke, who was well on course to reach his century, fell in the 49th over, on 93 from 80 balls, to give Nehemiah Odhiambo a deserving third wicket. If Kenya thought the fall of those two wickets, Clarke’s with the score on 304 for six, would give them respite, they hadn’t reckoned with Steven Smith and Mitchell Johnson. The pair swung the bat around to add 20 in 11 balls, lifting the score to 324.
Brief Scores: Australia 324 for 6 in 50 overs (Michael Clarke 93, Brad Haddin 65, Michael Hussey 54, Ricky Ponting 36; Jimmy Kamande 2 for 46, Nehemiah Odhiambo 3 for 57, Collins Obuya 1 for 33) vs Kenya.
(Jamie Alter is a freelance cricket writer, having worked at ESPNcricinfo and All Sports Magazine.His first book, The History of World Cup Cricket, is out now)
Pictures © Getty Images
