Cricket: Black Caps eye world No 2 spot

By MARK GEENTY

BRISTOL - New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming can see the one-day side scaling unprecedented heights as they eye a tri-series final and potentially their best world ranking of No 2 this week.

The tourists, a universe away from their test series woes a month ago, popped the champagne corks and reflected on a sound two days' work after dispatching the West Indies and England in consecutive days.

Before a full house of 15,000, including healthy numbers of New Zealanders, Fleming's 99 with half-century back-ups from Nathan Astle and Hamish Marshall saw them beat England by six wickets chasing 238.

They now head to Southampton for Thursday's match against the West Indies, who have to beat England tonight to stay in with a chance.

The Black Caps' first final at Lord's beckons on Saturday and the chance to win an overseas tri-series in consecutive years and shoot past South Africa to second in the world behind Australia.

Fleming was strangely subdued after he guided New Zealand to their eighth consecutive win, beating the previous record streak of seven.

Asked if this was the best one-day unit he had played in, he offered a dead bat.

"It's working well for us, and our record over the past 12 or 13 games suggests we're learning the game pretty well," he said.

"Since we made some changes with John [Bracewell, the coach] and started playing some good one-day cricket, we're not really sure how good we can be. Today we dropped some catches, and we did not finish off at crucial times when we were bowling, and batting."

The mind boggles at what level a fit Shane Bond could have launched them to, given the huge contribution with the new ball from Jacob Oram, who again stood out with two for 27 off 10 overs.

New Zealand again had the best of the conditions after Fleming won his fourth consecutive toss and bowled first on a damp morning.

The win was comfortable enough against the world's seventh-ranked side, who are struggling for confidence, but it could have been a rout.

Chris Cairns was absent, resting a slight ankle injury, and Daryl Tuffey missed a third consecutive match with a thigh strain, which is not healing as medical staff expected.

Marshall dropped Andrew Flintoff on nought and Andrew Strauss on one - they went on to score 106 and 61 respectively - and the star of Durham, James Franklin, hit the earth hard by conceding 53 off eight overs.

Then Fleming ran out Marshall for 55 trying to reach 100 before it turned sour for the captain when he chipped to mid-wicket, still one short of limited-over century No 7.

He was the first New Zealander to be dismissed for 99 in an international one-dayer.

Careful to avoid any allegations of manipulating the result of Thursday's match, Fleming was adamant he did not favour either opponents as West Indies and England slug it out.

"We want to keep our winning streak going."


NZ winning streak

* South Africa by 8 wickets, Christchurch, February 17.

* South Africa by 5 runs, Wellington, Feb 20.

* South Africa by 6 wickets, Dunedin, Feb 25.

* South Africa by 2 runs, Auckland, Feb 29.

* South Africa by 5 wickets, Napier, March 2.

* England by 7 wickets, Durham, June 29.

* West Indies by 5 wickets, Cardiff, July 3.

* England by 6 wickets, Bristol, July 4.

- NZPA