NZ 200-9 (50 overs)
Aust 206-4 (45.2 overs)
New Zealand suffered one setback too many before being outplayed in the Champions Trophy one-day cricket final in South Africa yesterday.
The unavailability of injured captain Daniel Vettori was a cruel blow for the New Zealanders, who never really recovered as Australia won the final at SuperSport Park in Centurion by six wickets.
New Zealand missed Vettori's inspirational leadership, his batting and his bowling as Shane Watson hit an unbeaten 105 to guide Australia past New Zealand's 200 for nine with 28 balls to spare.
Vettori was ruled out shortly before the match when he failed a fitness test on a strained hamstring, an injury picked up during his team's semifinal victory over Pakistan.
It continued a run of misfortune to strike the Black Caps at the eight-nation tournament.
They were already without opening batsman Jesse Ryder, fast bowler Daryl Tuffey and allrounder Jacob Oram, who were forced to depart early because of injuries.
Being deprived of Vettori's talents was a hammer blow when New Zealand had to be at their best to stretch an Australian side coming off a crushing win over England in the semifinals.
The captaincy duties fell to Brendon McCullum, who acknowledged Vettori's absence hurt his side's prospects.
"Losing Daniel Vettori before the toss today was a huge blow," McCullum said.
"He's been instrumental in getting us into this final - his batting, his bowling and also his captaincy has played a huge part and it was a huge blow to lose him."
McCullum said his team still felt they had the resources to win the final.
"We've certainly come together as a group over this last couple of weeks, and we've gone through some pretty tough times in terms of losing some key players," he said.
"But I still thought we had the calibre of player, and also a good self belief in the unit that we'd be able to put Australia under pressure and hopefully come out with the result, but it wasn't to be."
McCullum, who contributed a 14-ball duck at the top of his team's innings, said New Zealand were probably about 50 runs short of a competitive total after they lost wickets regularly, beginning with his dismissal in the fourth over.
The loss of Neil Broom in the 41st over was another key moment because, in tandem with James Franklin, he had started to build momentum.
Broom was run out on 37 after a breakdown in communication, leaving New Zealand struggling on 159 for six.
"I thought when Neil Broom was run out it was obviously quite an important point in the game," McCullum said.
"If we'd managed to continue the momentum they'd built up over the previous couple of overs, we may have been able to post something in around that 230-240 region.
"If we'd done that, with the quick wickets we got at the start, we may have been a chance."
Martin Guptill topscored with 40 at first drop before departing softly - caught and bowled by spinner Nathan Hauritz, while Franklin, with 33, Aaron Redmond, 26, made starts without pushing on.
The New Zealand bowlers made breakthroughs in defence of a small total when Shane Bond and Kyle Mills reduced Australia to six for two during highly impressive opening spells.
But Watson and Cameron White, who hit 62, shared a third-wicket stand of 128 to effectively settle the issue.
Watson's second successive one-day century came off 129 balls and featured 10 fours and four sixes.
McCullum paid tribute to the work Bond and Mills did with the new ball. "I thought they were brilliant to take out the first couple of wickets in the fashion they did - it was a fantastic effort. They kept coming in and trying to give it their all but unfortunately we didn't provide them with enough runs."
- NZPA
