Crucial runouts give Zimbabwe advantage

WELLINGTON, DEC. 26. New Zealand provided woeful running between the wickets to surrender an opening day advantage in its one off Test against Zimbabwe here on Tuesday.

It was a remarkably slow day with just 190 runs scored for four wickets with an accurate Zimbabwe bowling and a dead pitch keeping the run rate down.

But coach David Trist said New Zealand could have been better placed had captain Stephen Fleming and top scorer Mark Richardson not fallen victim to some `misadventure' when running between wickets.

``I thought it was a demanding day, but we didn't achieve the dominance we thought we would,'' Trist said. ``When you have top order run outs it always has a significant bearing on the outcome. In regard to the dominance we could have achieved I guess we surrendered that through our own misadventure.''

Fleming and Richardson looked well set at lunch, taking New Zealand to 63 for two after the early departures of Matt Horne for one and Mathew Sinclair for nine.

However, five balls after the interval Richardson called and then sent back Fleming, on 22, leaving the captain stranded as Bryan Strang broke the stumps after a swift return from Guy Whittall.

That nipped a promising liaison in the bud. Later Richardson, on 75, and Nathan Astle looked to be compiling a significant partnership, when the former was slow out of the blocks and couldn't beat Henry Olonga's throw from cover.

Astle and Craig McMillan, both under pressure to retain their middle order berths, were undefeated on 56 and 20 respectively at the close.

Although the opening day's combat showed all the signs of a war of attrition, Trist was confident a result could be achieved with the pitch destined to favour the spinners more as the game wore on.

Richardson, who spent 69.2 overs in middle, illustrated the difficulty batsman faced. ``It's a wicket you have to graft on and you had to accept you will mistime the ball and get inside edges,'' he said.

``It's a slow wicket and with a ringed field it gets frustrating. You feel like you can hit it well into a gap but someone runs around and picks it up because there's really no pace in the wicket to really crunch it.''

Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak and left-arm seamer Bryan Strang, their team's only wicket takers, set the tone with economical opening spells.

The Kiwis only looked to up the tempo when the extra pace of Olonga was introduced late in the opening session. After a paucity of boundaries, Olonga conceded five in his first six- over spell, with Richardson and Fleming particularly severe on the wayward speedster.

But Olonga proved to be Zimbabwe's only weak link. Streak surrendered just 40 runs from 20 overs while Strang conceded 37 from 22, with eight maidens.

Inexperienced legspinner Bryan Murphy extracted turn imediately, although he was well handled by the New Zealanders, and medium pacer Guy Whittall conceded 11 runs from eight overs to keep the brakes on.

Zimbabwe coach Carl Rackemann was delighted with his team's efforts, bearing in mind an unresponsive pitch and blustery conditions which his players were unaccustomed to. ``It was a fantastic day for us, another wicket at the death would have been deluxe. We set about the job really well after losing the toss,'' Rackemann said.

``It's not an easy pitch to bat on but it's not an easy pitch to get people back on either. Our guys kept the pressure on all day. To keep them to 60 runs a session all day was tremendous.''

While Trist lamented the running between the wickets, Rackemann pondered what might have been had Alistair Campbell held a chance off Richardson when he was on 35.

``He's been sick for a week, it's a pity it didn't go to someone healthy who's been practising all week,'' he said. Campbell gave Richardson another life on 73 but he ran out of luck two runs later.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : Steve Waugh's day at the MCG
Next     : Kirsten anchors South Africa