Published: Feb 24, 2011, 11:27 PM (IST)
Edited: Jul 02, 2014, 10:35 PM (IST)
By Dileep V
Australia and New Zealand resume their Trans-Tasman rivalry at the Orange city. Though the rivalry doesn’t match the passion and intensity of an Indo-Pak match, it does compensate with high level performance.
New Zealand have never beaten Australia in India. They have lost all the seven matches till date. They have also met seven times in World Cup and Australia has triumphed in five of them against New Zealand’s two.
Ponting all the way
With the amount of matches played against New Zealand, it comes as no surprise that Ricky Ponting leads the run chart with 1959 runs, which is the highest by any batsmen against New Zealand. He along with Virender Sehwag has the maximum number of hundreds (6) against them.
The Aussie openers have had some success against New Zealand. Both Shane Watson and Brad Haddin have registered centuries against them and average in excess of 45.
Australia openers vs New Zealand
| Player | Inns | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 100s/50s |
| B Haddin | 14 | 594 | 110 | 45.69 | 89.59 | 2/2 |
| S Watson | 12 | 460 | 105* | 51.11 | 91.45 | 1/3 |
With the Kiwis in a rebuilding process, only Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori, Scott Styris and Ross Taylor has some experience of playing against the World Champions. McCullum has 937 runs against them but has a very ordinary average of 28.39, while Taylor’s 737 runs have come at 39.31. In World Cup, Styris’ score of 27 is the highest score among the present team.
Lee and Vettori show
Brett Lee has an impressive record against New Zealand. In the 27 matches he has played against them, he has snapped 51 wickets at an enviable average of 20.82. What’s impressive is that his economy is under five and strike rate around 25. Mitchell Johnson has 27 wickets, while Watson and Shaun Tait have chipped in with few wickets.
Vettori on the other hand has had to labour against the Aussies. Though he has 48 wickets, it has costed him 41.45 for each of them and has never had a four wicket haul. Kyle Mills has had better success than Vettori, removing 34 Aussie batsmen at 31.55 but at a higher economy of 5.27
Records in the offing
*Ponting needs 41 runs to cross 2,000 runs against New Zealand
*Clarke requires 92 runs to cross 1,000 runs against New Zealand
*Clarke needs 14 runs to reach 6,000 ODI career runs
*Cameron White is 31 runs short of 2,000 ODI career runs
*Brendon McCullum requires 63 runs to cross 1,000 runs against Australia
*Vettori needs two more wickets to reach 50 wickets against Australia
(Dileep.V is a Scouser fan, Sports freak, Movie buff, Laggard Quizzer and dreams of setting foot on Anfield one day)
