Cricket: NZ win with 90 off six overs

At last, a match for those with really short attention spans. Here's something that should catch your attention, too: New Zealand chased down 90 to win in just six overs of a seven over game. Extraordinary.

Heavy rain in London last night meant New Zealand's opening match of the World Twenty20 Championships was delayed by more than two hours and reduced to seven overs apiece. It also meant the New Zealanders were susceptible to the sort of massive upset that the Netherlands inflicted on the hosts less than 24 hours earlier.

New Zealand started their innings needing more than two runs a ball, a tall order whether they were playing Australia or the Naseby Fourths.

Jesse Ryder and Brendon McCullum smashed 51 off three overs. Things got a little wobbly when they were dismissed. Taylor ran out the skipper and tried to hoick everything over midwicket, while Jacob Oram looked dreadful having to go hard from ball one.

When nude-spinner Ryan Watson went for just four from the fifth over (and that a horrible muffed chance) and took Oram's wicket, suddenly 22 were needed from two.

Taylor and Scott Styris needed only one over, with Taylor hitting two crisp sixes to make up for showing the skipper the door.

There was nothing New Zealand could do about the weather but that does not excuse the fact their bowling was bad - horribly, wretchedly, inexcusably bad. Take out Ian Butler and they were even worse.

Scotland, given impetus by overweight 32-year-old Zimbabwean Watson, made the supposedly international attack look amateurish.

Just a month ago, Watson was dumped as captain in favour of Gavin Hamilton. Here, he took out his frustrations on a desperately poor opening attack. Iain O'Brien and James Franklin not only forgot the principles of bowling at the death - which they effectively were - but they forgot the principles of bowling at all, giving the burly Watson a diet of length balls he could lever to all points of the park.

To hear O'Brien in the break between innings talk about how they executed their lengths "pretty well I thought", was to listen to somebody who was either delusional, or had been given a very ordinary bowling plan by the coaching staff.

After two overs, Scotland had 30 runs on the board. When Watson went off the first ball of the third over, bowled by Butler, he departed The Oval with 27 from 10 balls.

His good work was continued by Navdeep Poonia (27 from 15) and Kyle Coetzer (33 from 15). The New Zealand figures were sorry. Scotland were feeding off the constant diet of medium pace and you had to wonder why neither McCullum nor Styris was employed.

New Zealand were hampered, too, by the fact their captain and best bowler was unavailable.

The big news before the match was Daniel Vettori withdrawing from the playing eleven after "busting" a shoulder during training. Early reports suggested he would be fit for the next match against South Africa.

SCOREBOARD

Scotland
R. Watson c Taylor b Butler 27
N. Poonia run out 27
K. Coetzer c McGlashan b Butler 33
J. Stander not out 0
C. Smith b Butler 0
Extras (lb-2) 2

Total (for four wickets, seven overs) 89

Fall of wickets: 1-30 2-89 3-89 4-89

Bowling: O'Brien 1-0-16-0, Franklin 1-0-12-0, Butler 2-0-19-3, Oram 2-0-21-0, Ryder 1-0-19-0.

New Zealand
B. McCullum run out 18
J. Ryder c MacLeod b Wright 31
R. Taylor not out 21
J. Oram c Stander b Watson 8
S. Styris not out 8
Extras (nb-3 w-1) 4

Total (for three wickets, six overs) 90

Fall of wickets: 1-51 2-59 3-68

Bowling: MacLeod 1-0-19-0, Drummond 2-0-25-0, Wright 1-0-20-1, Watson 1-0-4-0, Stander 1-0-22-0.

Result: New Zealand won by seven wickets.