Play nzherald.co.nz's rugby Pick the Score competition - go to: pickthescore.nzherald.co.nz
KEY POINTS:
Twenty20 cricket has come a long way from the night it was born, four years ago at a packed Eden Park.
New Zealand wore the old beige strip that night. There were afros, towelling hats and silly moustaches.
It was all a bit of a hoot. How times
have changed, and how quickly. Big money does that, as players recognise what is on offer in the shortest form of the international game.
There was a world championship in September 2007, and there's another in England in June. The players still talk of having fun with Twenty20, but it's now serious fun. A look at Dan Vettori, slumped in his chair after Sunday night's one-run loss to Australia in Sydney, drove home how serious. His body language spoke volumes.
New Zealand should have won the match comfortably. They had five wickets in hand at the end and the batsmen's inability to chase down a reasonable but far from overpowering Australian score of 150 for seven left him "devastated".
"That was one of the poorer run chases I've seen," he said. "We should have won easily, simple as that."
It was, he said, a lost opportunity for some players, who had the chance to present their long-term Twenty20 credentials. The bowlers generally did well but the batting stuttered early against Nathan Bracken, a champion limited-overs operator for Australia, whose first 10 balls were runless.
"The guy bowled a maiden," Vettori said of Bracken's first over, with an unmistakable note of incredulity in his voice.
The strike was not rotated and, in Vettori's words, there was no "recognition of the situation".
Peter Fulton failed to build on a spanking cameo in Brisbane on Friday night; Grant Elliott has done well in the ODIs but he's a worker and placer of the ball. He swung and missed repeatedly on Sunday night. The slog is not his game.
Clearly Nathan McCullum possesses some of his younger brother's genes in the slam-bam batting department and should have gone in ahead of the recalled James Franklin.
Had Brendon McCullum not fallen to a fine catch on the long-on boundary by Adam Voges off the first ball of the 19th over, New Zealand would probably have won. At that point 20 runs were needed from the remaining 12 balls. Voges nifty footwork saved a six; that would have been 14 needed off 11 balls, and a doddle.
Some of the New Zealand players quietly figured Sunday night as a chance to finish the limited-overs tour 3-2 ahead, after squaring the Chappell Hadlee series 2-2. It wasn't. It's different cricket but up to a point you can understand their feelings.
New Zealand have played more Twenty20 games than any other country, but have only won six of 19. On Sunday night's showing, that accumulated wisdom is not coming through. There has been a solitary win in their past 10 matches.
India are up next. They possess batting plunderers in the short game and top-class speed and spin bowlers. They are also the reigning Twenty20 world champions. Next week's two games are New Zealand's last chance to get their bearings before the July world championship.
Australia's captain Brad Haddin talked about Sunday's game as a chance to "have a bit of fun, a bit of a hit and a laugh".
Vettori, hurt by his players inability to seize the night in Sydney, wasn't laughing.
