Friday night’s victory against the world champion Aussies was quite remarkable considering the position we found ourselves in at the beginning of both our batting and our bowling
Chris Cairns14-Jan-2002Friday night’s victory against the world champion Aussies was quite remarkable considering the position we found ourselves in at the beginning of both our batting and our bowling.It was good having the game in Brisbane against Aussie A before the Melbourne game because it showed us what we were up against and we were a little rusty there and did need to lift our intensity if we were going to compete with the full Aussie side.As I arrived at the MCG on the day of the match I have to admit to feeling more butterflies than normal because of the importance of this first match of the series and just the huge aura that emanates from the MCG, plus the huge crowd.When Steve Waugh won the toss and elected to bowl it was a good start as Flem [Stephen Fleming] was going to bat first anyway.Some excellent fast bowling from Australia had us in trouble early but the ever reliable Harry [Chris Harris] found an ally in Dan Vettori and these two guys put together a gutsy partnership that would turn out to be the single most important factor to our victory.Scott Styris also chipped in and with a target of 200 on the board we knew it would be hard work but early wickets are the key to defending small totals.If I think back to most of the victories New Zealand has had against Aussie over the past decade I reckon there is one common factor, we always get Mark Waugh early.I believe he is the key wicket in the Aussie one-day line-up and when Bondy [Shane Bond] removed him first over I felt like it was now an even playing field.While Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist looked dangerous for a while, we did remove them and the pressure came on their middle order who looked a bit like they were unsure how to go about chasing this small target.As we kept taking wickets we exposed their tail and when Dan Vettori took the last wicket the feeling that was experienced by all of us was pure joy.This victory was greeted by all in Aussie as a great fight by the CLEAR Black Caps and has really turned this VB Series into a great three-way competition.We arrived here in Hobart yesterday and rain meant the facilities for outdoor practice were not available so it was indoor for most of us while some of the guys had a gym session.We all watched South Africa get up to a very professional victory over Aussie and that win will do wonders to the South Africans after having a nightmare last four weeks here.There will be a spring in their step and the dark clouds will have broken to let in the sunlight.Our match against SA will be very interesting for a number of reasons. We haven’t played each other for a while and the last time SA beat us five-nil but there were three games which could have gone either way.From a personal point of view, last time I played these guys I was in bad shape with my knee and nowhere near full fitness. I am now back to full fitness and really looking forward to the challenge SA will provide.They are a predictably professional side and tough competitors but a victory here will see us get a jump on the field in the race to the finals berth.