Prince Senior to the Rescue

A good win in yesterday's opening game though it was hard work chasing 135 on a sluggish pitch not really suited to the strokemakers on both sides. Whether or not Nathan McCullum enjoys a substantial international career, he can look back at this game as an allround job well done. The two boundaries off Malinga in the last over hinted that he could apply for batting allrounder status.

Much has been said about how pitches like these will turn things significantly in NZ and Sri Lanka's favour as the tournament progresses, but that really only applies to the sides' bowlers. Only Mahela Jayawardena (whose classically-done 81 was the best T20 innings I've seen in a while) and Jesse Ryder were able to adjust to the slowness of the pitch and play freely. NZ benefited greatly from Dilshan and Sangakkara being out-of-sorts, and later the Lankan spinners were met with little opposition during the middle overs and almost set up a win.

The excellent bowling and fielding effort did mask some concerns with the way NZ approached the target, with the main men falling to the same old mistakes. As always Ryder looked a million bucks as long as he was in and then fell to a stupid shot. McCullum junior walked right into a trap, apparently having learned nothing about his KKR teammate Mathews. Ross Taylor's scoring options were severely limited by the slow men, and the minute he lined up midwicket he was gone. And Scott Styris, despite being a good player on such surfaces, always manages to look clueless against quality spin. Thankfully Vettori, Oram and the older McCullum saved the day with the bat too. Oram appears to be striking the ball really well after a long time, and I would probably bat him at 4 from now on because he is so wasted down the order.

Still, I shouldn't be dwelling on the concerns. Lanka are not our favoured opponents by any means, and they pretty much played up to their usual standard (in the field at least), so the win was well-earned.